The Lost Gold of the Montezumas Part 21

A white man might not have seen anything, for all around him was as dark as a pocket, but upon a cloudy gloom above the forest beyond him there rested a faint, yellowish glow.

"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Fire burn."

He had brought no weapons with him excepting the knife and pistols in his belt, but he was now armed better than were most Indian boys, and Bowie had promised him a rifle.

From tree to tree, keeping among the shadows, on he went, and all the while the glow grew brighter, until at last he could see the flas.h.i.+ng of fires and the forms of those around them.

"Ugh!" said Red Wolf. "Mexican. No Comanche. Heap sleep."

In every direction lay the prostrate forms of men. Standing erect or walking hither and thither were a few who might be acting as a night watch. A group of these were gathered at the end of the camp nearest the young scout or spy, and he crept toward them, for they were jabbering loudly in Spanish. They carried weapons, bows and arrows, _escopetas_, or short muskets, _machetes_ of all sorts and sizes, knives, lances, hatchets, clubs. They were not regular soldiers, but their numbers made them sufficiently dangerous.

"Eat up Texan," thought Red Wolf. "No catch him. Go back."

He went rapidly enough, until Joe, at the foot of his tree, was startled by a hand upon his shoulder. A few swift words told him what was the matter, and the other rangers were at once roughly stirred up.

"Do you s'pose, colonel," asked Cheyne, "that we've been followed?"

"Not a bit of it!" exclaimed Bowie. "These chaps got their cue from Tetzcatl somehow while we were on the way. He never meant we should find out this thing and get home again. They don't know the secret either. All they know is that we're a squad of Gringos, and that we must be chopped up. Most likely they heard of us to-day, and mean to strike us in the morning. We must git! That's all."

"Bully for Red Wolf!" seemed to express the general opinion of the rangers, but the half-rested, half-fed animals were untethered at once.

"If it hadn't been for you they'd ha' corralled us," remarked Cheyne to Red Wolf, but all the response he obtained was "Ugh!"

"We have everything in our favor," said the colonel, "now we've pa.s.sed 'em. Such a crowd as that won't stir out early. They'll all lie around and jabber and smoke cigarettes and drink pulque and gamble and boast, and then they'll swarm in to find that we've stolen a march on 'em."

For once he was mistaken in his estimate of his enemies. It was in the very dawn of the day, when he and his comrades might have been supposed to be asleep, that the miscellaneous militia from the Mexican camp "swarmed in" to slaughter the too adventurous Gringos. It was a sudden rush, made at a signal, a musket-shot, and it was made with wild shouts of antic.i.p.ated triumph. It would have been entirely successful but for the fact that Bowie and his men had been pus.h.i.+ng northward during four long hours, at a rate which had compelled them to abandon one more of their over-driven horses.

"We've learned one lesson," said the colonel, when at last they halted on the northerly bank of a stream which had proved barely fordable.

"When we come again we can make sure that all the Greasers will gather behind us to cut off our retreat."

"That's what I was saying," replied Cheyne. "We mustn't try to go and come by the same road."

"Ugh!" said Red Wolf. "Bring heap Texan. Mexican run."

"There's a good deal in that," laughed Bowie, "but we don't want to have to light at all. We must work it as sly as so many horse-thieves.

We shall be carrying too much plunder to want a battle with Bravo's lancers."

They were safe for the present, however, and after only a brief rest they went on again--for life.

CHAPTER XV.

THE RETURN OF THE GOLD HUNTERS.

"Well, boys, we got in like woodchucks by the same hole we came out of," said Colonel Bowie to his men.

"Reckon the lancers are scouting the south prairie after us yet,"

replied Jim Cheyne.

"They didn't knew about the ravine, Jim," said another ranger. "But ain't I glad we're safe in among the bushes."

Here they were, at all events, plodding along one of the sandy avenues of the chaparral. Both the men and their horses had a worn and jaded look.

"Our tramp's nearly ended," continued the colonel. "The lancers made it a close shave from the Rio Grande to the Nueces, but we've beaten 'em. We know now that Santa Anna is in Texas, and we're back in time to take our part in the fight. We've had good weather to travel in, but so will he. It's getting on into the spring."

"Ugh!" exclaimed Red Wolf, pausing before a tree. "Heap Comanche in bushes. Great Bear sign."

There was a gash upon the tree, such as might be made with a knife. It was a curved line with a notch in the middle, for a bow with an arrow, it might be.

"Made to-day," said Bowie, as he studied the mark. "The sap is running. We'll have to keep a sharp lookout if we mean to get through, but they can't know we're here."

It was a warning of an unexpected danger, but it did not seem to depress them. On the contrary, their faces were bright and hopeful, in spite of the fact that they had left so many tired-out horses by the way that they now had only one mount left for each man.

"We haven't lost a man," remarked Jim, cheerfully, "and we've kept every pound of the rhino. We're going back after the rest of it, too."

"We are!" said Bowie, with almost an appearance of enthusiasm. "We'll set out as soon as Texas is clear of Santa Anna."

"That's it," said Joe; "but you see, as soon as he's well whipped the coast 'll be clearer than it ever was before."

On they pushed, and Red Wolf rode in the advance as a kind of guide.

Part of the time he was hidden from his white friends by the crooks and turns of the path by which he was leading them, and now and then he had to ride back to indicate the right way.

"It takes a redskin," they said more than once, "and he's jest the reddest Indian there ever was."

That was so, for the sun had not appeared to have any power over the peculiar tint of his skin, but all the while he had seemed to be growing older. If he had been a boy when he joined them at the Alamo, Red Wolf was now a warrior, tested by the emergencies of a very uncommon "war-path."

The hours went swiftly by and there was no haste to be made.

"Go slow," had been the repeated injunction of Bowie. "The main thing is to get there."

It must have been about noon when Red Wolf came riding back with a hand lifted in warning.

"What is it?" asked Bowie.

"Ugh!" he said. "Great Bear in bushes. Heap Comanche. Big Knife heap snake."

He wheeled his mustang to the right and they followed him.

"It's awful!" exclaimed Cheyne. "Colonel, the Comanches have joined the Mexicans. What about the Lipans?"

"Fighting the Comanches," responded Bowie. "The trouble is that they seem to be expecting us. If we can ride around 'em, though, we'll get in."

"All right," said Jim, "but things are looking a little squally. I'd like to give 'em a shot or two."

"Not a shot if we can help it," said Bowie. "Wait till I show you something. It's only a short ride now."