The Scalp Hunters Part 25

I ran with the rest. The smoke for a moment blinded me. I heard the shrill notes of the Indian whistle. I looked before me. The girl had disappeared.

We ran to the spot where she had stood. We heard a rustling in the underwood, a departing footstep. We knew it was she; but guided by an instinct of delicacy, and a knowledge that it would be contrary to the wish of her brother, no one followed her.

We found the fragments of the calabash strewed over the ground. We found the leaden mark upon them. The bullet itself was buried in the bark of the tree, and one of the hunters commenced digging it out with the point of his bowie.

When we turned to go back we saw that the Indian had walked away, and now stood chatting easily and familiarly with Seguin.

As we re-entered the camp-ground I observed Garey stoop and pick up a s.h.i.+ning object. It was the _gage d'amour_, which he carefully readjusted around his neck in its wonted position.

From his look and the manner in which he handled it, it was plain that he now regarded that souvenir with more reverence than ever.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

A FEAT A LA TAIL.

I had fallen into a sort of reverie. My mind was occupied with the incidents I had just witnessed, when a voice, which I recognised as that of old Rube, roused me from my abstraction.

"Look'ee hyur, boyees! Tain't of'n as ole Rube wastes lead, but I'll beat that Injun's shot, or 'ee may cut my ears off."

A loud laugh hailed this allusion of the trapper to his ears, which, as we have observed, were already gone; and so closely had they been trimmed that nothing remained for either knife or shears to accomplish.

"How will you do it, Rube?" cried one of the hunters; "shoot the mark off a yer own head?"

"I'll let 'ee see if 'ee wait," replied Rube, stalking up to a tree, and taking from its rest a long, heavy rifle, which he proceeded to wipe out with care.

The attention of all was now turned to the manoeuvres of the old trapper. Conjecture was busy as to his designs. What feat could he perform that would eclipse the one just witnessed? No one could guess.

"I'll beat it," continued he, muttering, as he loaded his piece, "or 'ee may chop the little finger off ole Rube's right paw."

Another peal of laughter followed, as all perceived that this was the finger that was wanting.

"'Ee--es," continued he, looking at the faces that were around him, "'ee may scalp me if I don't."

This last remark elicited fresh roars of laughter; for although the cat-skin was closely drawn upon his head, all present knew that old Rube was minus his scalp.

"But how are ye goin' to do it? Tell us that, old hoss!"

"'Ee see this, do 'ee?" asked the trapper, holding out a small fruit of the cactus pitahaya, which he had just plucked and cleaned of its spikelets.

"Ay, ay," cried several voices, in reply.

"'Ee do, do 'ee? Wal; 'ee see 'tain't half as big as the Injun's squash. 'Ee see that, do 'ee?"

"Oh, sartinly! Any fool can see that."

"Wal; s'pose I plug it at sixty, plump centre?"

"Wagh!" cried several, with shrugs of disappointment.

"Stick it on a pole, and any o' us can do that," said the princ.i.p.al speaker. "Here's Barney could knock it off wid his owld musket.

Couldn't you, Barney?"

"In truth, an' I could thry," answered a very small man, leaning upon a musket, and who was dressed in a tattered uniform that had once been sky-blue. I had already noticed this individual with some curiosity, partly struck with his peculiar costume, but more particularly on account of the redness of his hair, which was the reddest I had ever seen. It bore the marks of a severe barrack discipline--that is, it had been shaved, and was now growing out of his little round head short and thick, and coa.r.s.e in the grain, and of the colour of a sc.r.a.ped carrot.

There was no possibility of mistaking Barney's nationality. In trapper phrase, any fool could have told that.

What had brought such an individual to such a place? I asked this question, and was soon enlightened. He had been a soldier in a frontier post, one of Uncle Sam's "Sky-blues." He had got tired of pork and pipe-clay, accompanied with a too liberal allowance of the hide. In a word, Barney was a deserter. What his name was, I know not, but he went under the appellation of O'Cork--Barney O'Cork.

A laugh greeted his answer to the hunter's question.

"Any o' us," continued the speaker, "could plug the persimmon that a way. But thar's a mighty heap o' diff'rence when you squints thro'

hind-sights at a girl like yon."

"Ye're right, d.i.c.k," said another hunter; "it makes a fellow feel queery about the jeints."

"Holy vistment! An' wasn't she a raal beauty?" exclaimed the little Irishman, with an earnestness in his manner that set the trappers roaring again.

"Pis.h.!.+" cried Rube, who had now finished loading, "yur a set o'

channering fools; that's what 'ee ur. Who palavered about a post? I've got an ole squaw as well's the Injun. She'll hold the thing for this child--she will."

"Squaw! You a squaw?"

"Yes, hoss; I has a squaw I wudn't swop for two o' his'n. I'll make tracks an' fetch the old 'oman. Shet up yur heads, an' wait, will ye?"

So saying, the smoky old sinner shouldered his rifle, and walked off into the woods.

I, in common with others, late comers, who were strangers to Rube, began to think that he had an "old 'oman." There were no females to be seen about the encampment, but perhaps she was hid away in the woods. The trappers, however, who knew him, seemed to understand that the old fellow had some trick in his brain; and that, it appeared, was no new thing for him.

We were not kept long in suspense. In a few minutes Rube was seen returning, and by his side the "old 'oman," in the shape of a long, lank, bare-ribbed, high-boned mustang, that turned out on close inspection to be a mare! This, then, was Rube's squaw, and she was not at all unlike him, excepting the ears. She was long-eared, in common with all her race: the same as that upon which Quixote charged the windmill. The long ears caused her to look mulish, but it was only in appearance; she was a pure mustang when you examined her attentively.

She seemed to have been at an earlier period of that dun-yellowish colour known as "clay-bank," a common colour among Mexican horses; but time and scars had somewhat metamorphosed her, and grey hairs predominated all over, particularly about the head and neck. These parts were covered with a dirty grizzle of mixed hues. She was badly wind-broken; and at stated intervals of several minutes each, her back, from the spasmodic action of the lungs, heaved up with a jerk, as though she were trying to kick with her hind legs, and couldn't. She was as thin as a rail, and carried her head below the level of her shoulders; but there was something in the twinkle of her solitary eye (for she had but one), that told you she had no intention of giving up for a long time to come. She was evidently game to the backbone.

Such was the "old 'oman" Rube had promised to fetch; and she was greeted by a loud laugh as he led her up.

"Now, look'ee hyur, boyees," said he, halting in front of the crowd.

"Ee may larf, an' gabble, an' grin till yur sick in the guts--yur may!

but this child's a-gwine to take the s.h.i.+ne out o' that Injun's shot--he is, or bust a-tryin'."

Several of the bystanders remarked that that was likely enough, and that they only waited to see in what manner it was to be done. No one who knew him doubted old Rube to be, as in fact he was, one of the very best marksmen in the mountains--fully equal, perhaps, to the Indian; but it was the style and circ.u.mstances which had given such _eclat_ to the shot of the latter. It was not every day that a beautiful girl could be found to stand fire as the squaw had done; and it was not every hunter who would have ventured to fire at a mark so placed. The strength of the feat lay in its newness and peculiarity. The hunters had often fired at the mark held in one another's hands. There were few who would like to carry it on their head. How, then, was Rube to "take the s.h.i.+ne out o' that Injun's shot"? This was the question that each was asking the other, and which was at length put directly to Rube himself.

"Shet up your meat-traps," answered he, "an I'll show 'ee. In the fust place, then, 'ee all see that this hyur p.r.i.c.kly ain't more'n hef size o'

the squash?"

"Yes, sartainly," answered several voices. "That wur one suk.u.mstance in his favour. Wa'nt it?"

"It wur! it wur!"

"Wal, hyur's another. The Injun, 'ee see, shot his mark off o' the head. Now, this child's a-gwine to knock his'n off o' the tail. Kud yur Injun do that? Eh, boyees?"