Chapter Sixty Five
STILL ANOTHER INTERLUDE.
For a third time is the tableau reconstructed--spectators and actors in the dread drama taking their places as before.
The lazo is once more passed over the limb; the same two scoundrels taking hold of its loose end--this time drawing it towards them till it becomes taut.
For the third time arises the reflection:
"Soon must the soul of Maurice Gerald go back to its God!"
Now nearer than ever does the unfortunate man seem to his end. Even love has proved powerless to save him! Wha power on earth can be appealed to after this? None likely to avail.
But there appears no chance of succour--no time for it. There is no mercy in the stern looks of the Regulators--only impatience. The hangmen, too, appear in a hurry--as if they were in dread of another interruption. They manipulate the rope with the ability of experienced executioners. The physiognomy of either would give colour to the assumption, that they had been accustomed to the calling.
In less than sixty seconds they shall have finished the "job."
"Now then, Bill! Are ye ready?" shouts one to the other--by the question proclaiming, that they no longer intend to wait for the word.
"All right!" responds Bill. "Up with the son of a skunk! Up with him!"
There is a pull upon the rope, but not sufficient to raise the body into an erect position. It tightens around the neck; lifts the head a little from the ground, but nothing more!
Only one of the hangmen has given his strength to the pull. "Haul, damn you!" cries Bill, astonished at the inaction of his assistant. "Why the hell don't you haul?"
Bill's back is turned towards an intruder, that, seen by the other, has hindered him from lending a hand. He stands as if suddenly transformed into stone!
"Come!" continues the chief executioner. "Let's go at it again--both together. Yee--up! Up with him!"
"No ye don't!" calls out a voice in the tones of a stentor; while a man of colossal frame, carrying a six-foot rifle, is seen rushing out from among the trees, in strides that bring him almost instantly into the thick of the crowd.
"No ye don't!" he repeats, stopping over the prostrate body, and bringing his long rifle to bear upon the ruffians of the rope. "Not yet a bit, as this coon kalkerlates. You, Bill Griffin; pull that piece o' pleeted hoss-hair but the eighth o' an inch tighter, and ye'll git a blue pill in yer stummuk as won't agree wi' ye. Drop the rope, durn ye! Drop it!"
The screaming of Zeb Stump's mare scarce created a more sudden diversion than the appearance of Zeb himself--for it was he who had hurried upon the ground.
He was known to nearly all present; respected by most; and feared by many.
Among the last were Bill Griffin, and his fellow rope-holder. No longer holding it: for at the command to drop it, yielding to a quick perception of danger, both had let go; and the lazo lay loose along the sward.
"What durned tom-foolery's this, boys?" continues the colossus, addressing himself to the crowd, still speechless from surprise. "Ye don't mean hangin', do ye?"
"We do," answers a stern voice. "And why not?" asks another.
"Why not! Ye'd hang a fellur-citizen 'ithout trial, wud ye?"
"Not much of a fellow-citizen--so far as that goes. Besides, he's had a trial--a fair trial."
"I'deed. A human critter to be condemned wi' his brain in a state o' dulleerium! Sent out o' the world 'ithout knowin' that he's in it! Ye call that a fair trial, do ye?"
"What matters it, if we know he's guilty? We're all satisfied about that."
"The hell ye air! Wagh! I aint goin' to waste words wi' sech as you, Jim Stoddars. But for you, Sam Manly, an yerself, Mister Peintdexter--shurly ye aint agreed to this hyur proceeding which, in my opeenyun, 'ud be neyther more nor less 'n murder?"
"You haven't heard all, Zeb Stump," interposes the Regulator Chief, with the design to justify his acquiescence in the act. "There are facts--!"
"Facts be durned! An' fancies, too! I don't want to hear 'em. It'll be time enuf for thet, when the thing kum to a reg'lar trial; the which shurly nob'dy hyur'll objeck to--seein' as thur aint the ghost o' a chance for him to git off. Who air the individooal that objecks?"
"You take too much upon you, Zeb Stump. What is it your business, we'd like to know? The man that's been murdered wasn't your son; nor your brother, nor your cousin neither! If he had been, you'd be of a different way of thinking, I take it."
It is Calhoun who has made this interpolation--spoken before with so much success to his scheme.
"I don't see that it concerns you," he continues, "what course we take in this matter."
"But I do. It consarns me--fust, because this young fellur's a friend o' mine, though he air Irish, an a strenger; an secondly, because Zeb Stump aint a goin' to stan' by, an see foul play--even tho' it be on the purayras o' Texas."
"Foul play be damned! There's nothing of the sort. And as for standing by, we'll see about that. Boys! you're not going to be scared from your duty by such swagger as this? Let's make a finish of what we've begun. The blood of a murdered man cries out to us. Lay hold of the rope!"
"Do; an by the eturnal! the fust that do 'll drop it a leetle quicker than he grups it. Lay a claw on it--one o' ye--if ye darr. Ye may hang this poor critter as high's ye like; but not till ye've laid Zeb'lon Stump streetched dead upon the grass, wi' some o' ye alongside o' him. Now then! Let me see the skunk thet's goin' to tech thet rope!"
Zeb's speech is followed by a profound silence. The people keep their places--partly from the danger of accepting his challenge, and partly from the respect due to his courage and generosity. Also, because there is still some doubt in the minds of the Regulators, both as to the expediency, and fairness, of the course which Calhoun is inciting them to take.
With a quick instinct the old hunter perceives the advantage he has gained, and presses it.
"Gie the young fellur a fair trial," urges he. "Let's take him to the settlement, an hev' him tried thur. Ye've got no clur proof, that he's had any hand in the black bizness; and durn me! if I'd believe it unless I seed it wi' my own eyes. I know how he feeled torst young Peintdexter. Instead o' bein' his enemy, thur aint a man on this ground hed more o' a likin' for him--tho' he did hev a bit o' shindy wi' his precious cousin thur."
"You are perhaps not aware, Mr Stump," rejoins the Regulator Chief, in a calm voice, "of what we've just been hearing?"
"What hev ye been hearin'?"
"Evidence to the contrary of what you assert. We have proof, not only that there was bad blood between Gerald and young Poindexter, but that a quarrel took place on the very night--"
"Who sez thet, Sam Manly?"
"I say it," answers Calhoun, stepping a little forward, so as to be seen by Stump.
"O, you it air, Mister Cash Calhoun! You know thur war bad blood atween 'em? You seed the quarrel ye speak o'?"
"I haven't said that I saw it, Zeb Stump. And what's more I'm not going to stand any cross-questioning by you. I have given my evidence, to those who have the right to hear it; and that's enough. I think, gentlemen, you're satisfied as to the verdict. I don't see why this old fool should interrupt--"
"Ole fool!" echoes the hunter, with a screech; "Ole fool! Hell an herrikins! Ye call me an ole fool? By the eturnal God! ye'll live to take back that speech, or my name aint Zeblun Stump, o' Kaintucky. Ne'er a mind now; thur's a time for everythin', an yur time may come, Mister Cash Calhoun, sooner than ye surspecks it."
"As for a quarrel atween Henry Peintdexter an the young fellur hyur," continues Zeb, addressing himself to the Regulator Chief, "I don't believe a word on't; nor won't, so long's thur's no better proof than his palaverin'. From what this chile knows, it don't stan' to reezun. Ye say ye've got new facks? So've I too. Facks I reck'n thet'll go a good way torst explicatin o' this mysteerus bizness, twisted up as it air."
"What facts?" demands the Regulator Chief. "Let's hear them, Stump."
"Thur's more than one. Fust place what do ye make o' the young fellur bein' wownded hisself? I don't talk o' them scratches ye see; I believe them's done by coyoats that attackted him, arter they see'd he wur wownded. But look at his knee Somethin' else than coyoats did that. What do you make o' it, Sam Manly?"
"Well, that--some of the boys here think there's been a struggle between him and--"
"Atween him an who?" sharply interrogates Zeb.
"Why, the man that's missing."
"Yes, that's he who we mean," speaks one of the "boys" referred to. "We all know that Harry Poindexter wouldn't a stood to be shot down like a calf. They've had a tussle, and a fall among the rocks. That's what's given him the swellin' in the knee. Besides, there's the mark of a blow upon his head--looks like it had been the butt of a pistol. As for the scratches, we can't tell what's made them. Thorns may be; or wolves if you like. That foolish fellow of his has a story about a tiger; but it won't do for us."
"What fellur air ye talkin' o'? Ye mean Irish Pheelum? Where air he?"
"Stole away to save his carcass. We'll find him, as soon as we've settled this business; and I guess a little hanging will draw the truth out of him."
"If ye mean abeout the tiger, ye'll draw no other truth out o' him than hat ye've got a'ready. I see'd thet varmint myself, an war jest in time to save the young fellur from its claws. But thet aint the peint. Ye've had holt o' the Irish, I 'spose. Did he tell ye o' nothin' else he seed hyur?"
"He had a yarn about Indians. Who believes it?"
"Wal; he tolt me the same story, and that looks like some truth in't. Besides, he declurs they wur playin' curds, an hyur's the things themselves. I found 'em lying scattered about the floor o' the shanty. Spanish curds they air."
Zeb draws the pack out of his pocket, and hands it over to the Regulator Chief.
The cards, on examination, prove to be of Mexican manufacture--such as are used in the universal game of monte--the queen upon horseback "cavallo"--the spade represented by a sword "espada"--and the club "baston" symbolised by the huge paviour-like implement, seen in picture-books in the grasp of hairy Orson.
"Who ever heard of Comanches playing cards?" demands he, who has scouted the evidence about the Indians. "Damned ridiculous!"
"Ridiklus ye say!" interposes an old trapper who had been twelve months a prisoner among the Comanches. "Ridiklus it may be; but it's true f'r all that. Many's the game this coon's seed them play, on a dressed burner hide for their table. That same Mexikin montay too. I reckon they've larned it from thar Mexikin captives; of the which they've got as good as three thousand in thar different tribes. Yes, sirree!" concludes the trapper. "The Keymanchees do play cards--sure as shootin'."
Zeb Stump is rejoiced at this bit of evidence, which is more than he could have given himself. It strengthens the case for the accused. The fact, of there having been Indians in the neighbourhood, tends to alter the aspect of the affair in the minds of the Regulators--hitherto under the belief that the Comanches were marauding only on the other side of the settlement.
"Sartin sure," continues Zeb, pressing the point in favour of an adjournment of the trial, "thur's been Injuns hyur, or some thin' durned like--Geesus Geehosofat! Whar's she comin' from?"
The clattering of hoofs, borne down from the bluff, salutes the ear of everybody at the same instant of time.
No one needs to inquire, what has caused Stump to give utterance to that abrupt interrogatory. Along the top of the cliff, and close to its edge, a horse is seen, going at a gallop. There is a woman--a lady-- upon his back, with hat and hair streaming loosely behind her--the string hindering the hat from being carried altogether away!
So wild is the gallop--so perilous from its proximity to the precipice-- you might suppose the horse to have run away with his rider.
But no. You may tell that he has not, by the actions of the equestrian herself. She seems not satisfied with the pace; but with whip, spur, and voice keeps urging him to increase it!
This is plain to the spectators below; though they are puzzled and confused by her riding so close to the cliff.
They stand in silent astonishment. Not that they are ignorant of who it is. It would be strange if they were. That woman equestrian-- man-seated in the saddle--once seen was never more to be forgotten.
She is recognised at the first glance. One and all know the reckless galloper to be the guide--from whom, scarce half-an-hour ago, they had parted upon the prairie.
Chapter Sixty Six
CHASED BY COMANCHES.
It was Isidora who had thus strangely and suddenly shown herself. What was bringing her back? And why was she riding at such a perilous pace?
To explain it, we must return to that dark reverie, from which she was startled by her encounter with the "Tejanos."
While galloping away from the Alamo, she had not thought of looking back, to ascertain whether she was followed. Absorbed in schemes of vengeance, she had gone on--without even giving a glance behind.
It was but slight comfort to her to reflect: that Louise Poindexter had appeared equally determined upon parting from the jacale. With a woman's intuitive quickness, she suspected the cause; though she knew, too well, it was groundless.
Still, there was some pleasure in the thought: that her rival, ignorant of her happy fortune, was suffering like herself.
There was a hope, too, that the incident might produce estrangement in the heart of this proud Creole lady towards the man so condescendingly beloved; though it was faint, vague, scarce believed in by her who conceived it.
Taking her own heart as a standard, she was not one to lay much stress on the condescension of love: her own history was proof of its levelling power. Still was there the thought that her presence at the jacale had given pain, and might result in disaster to the happiness of her hated rival.
Isidora had begun to dwell upon this with a sort of subdued pleasure; that continued unchecked, till the time of her rencontre with the Texans.
On turning back with these, her spirits underwent a change. The road to be taken by Louise, should have been the same as that, by which she had herself come. But no lady was upon it.
The Creole must have changed her mind, and stayed by the jacale--was, perhaps, at that very moment performing the metier Isidora had so fondly traced out for herself?
The belief that she was about to bring shame upon the woman who had brought ruin upon her, was the thought that now consoled her.
The questions put by Poindexter, and his companions, sufficiently disclosed the situation. Still clearer was it made by the final interrogations of Calhoun; and, after her interrogators had passed away, she remained by the side of the thicket--half in doubt whether to ride on to the Leona, or go back and be the spectator of a scene, that, by her own contrivance, could scarce fail to be exciting.
She is upon the edge of the chapparal, just inside the shadow of the timber. She is astride her grey steed, that stands with spread nostril and dilated eye, gazing after the cavallada that has late parted from the spot--a single horseman in the rear of the rest. Her horse might wonder why he is being thus ridden about; but he is used to sudden changes in the will of his capricious rider.
She is looking in the same direction--towards the alhuehuete;--whose dark summit towers above the bluffs of the Alamo.
She sees the searchers descend; and, after them, the man who has so minutely questioned her. As his head sinks below the level of the plain, she fancies herself alone upon it.
In this fancy she is mistaken.
She remains irresolute for a time--ten--fifteen--twenty minutes.
Her thoughts are not to be envied. There is not much sweetness in the revenge, she believes herself instrumental in having accomplished. If she has caused humiliation to the woman she hates, along with it she may have brought ruin upon the man whom she loves? Despite all that has passed, she cannot help loving him!
"Santissima Virgen!" she mutters with a fervent earnestness. "What have I done? If these men--Los Reguladores--the dreaded judges I've heard of--if they should find him guilty, where may it end? In his death! Mother of God! I do not desire that. Not by their hands--no! no! How wild their looks and gestures--stern--determined! And when I pointed out the way, how quickly they rode off, without further thought of me! Oh, they have made up their minds. Don Mauricio is to die! And he a stranger among them--so have I heard. Not of their country, or kindred; only of the same race. Alone, friendless, with many enemies. Santissima! what am I thinking of? Is not he, who has just left me, that cousin of whom I've heard speak! Ay de mi! Now do I understand the cause of his questioning. His heart, like mine own--like mine own!"
She sits with her gaze bent over the open plain. The grey steed still frets under restraint, though the cavallada has long since passed out of sight. He but responds to the spirit of his rider; which he knows to be vacillating--chafing under some irresolution.
'Tis the horse that first discovers a danger, or something that scents of it. He proclaims it by a low tremulous neigh, as if to attract her attention; while his head, tossed back towards the chapparal, shows that the enemy is to be looked for in that direction.
Who, or what is it?
Warned by the behaviour of her steed, Isidora faces to the thicket, and scans the path by which she has lately passed through it. It is the road, or trail, leading to the Leona. 'Tis only open to the eye for a straight stretch of about two hundred yards. Beyond, it becomes screened by the bushes, through which it goes circuitously.
No one is seen upon it--nothing save two or three lean coyotes, that skulk under the shadow of the trees--scenting the shod tracks, in the hope of finding some scrap, that may have fallen from the hurrying horsemen.
It is not these that have caused the grey to show such excitement. He sees them; but what of that? The prairie-wolf is a sight to him neither startling, nor rare. There is something else--something he has either scented, or heard.
Isidora listens: for a time without hearing aught to alarm her. The howl-bark of the jackal does not beget fear at any time; much less in the joy of the daylight. She hears only this. Her thoughts again return to the "Tejanos"--especially to him who has last parted from her side. She is speculating on the purpose of his earnest interrogation; when once more she is interrupted by the action of her horse.
The animal shows impatience at being kept upon the spot; snuffs the air; snorts; and, at length, gives utterance to a neigh, far louder than before!
This time it is answered by several others, from horses that appear to be going along the road--though still hidden behind the trees. Their hoof-strokes are heard at the same time.
But not after. The strange horses have either stopped short, or gone off at a gentle pace, making no noise!
Isidora conjectures the former. She believes the horses to be ridden; and that their riders have checked them up, on hearing the neigh of her own.
She quiets him, and listens.
A humming is heard through the trees. Though indistinct, it can be told to be the sound of men's voices--holding a conversation in a low muttered tone.
Presently it becomes hushed, and the chapparal is again silent. The horsemen, whoever they are, continue halted--perhaps hesitating to advance.
Isidora is scarce astonished at this, and not much alarmed. Some travellers, perhaps, en route for the Rio Grande--or, it may be, some stragglers from the Texan troop--who, on hearing a horse neigh, have stopped from an instinct of precaution. It is only natural--at a time, when Indians are known to be on the war-path.
Equally natural, that she should be cautious about encountering the strangers--whoever they may be; and, with this thought, she rides softly to one side--placing herself and her horse under cover of a mezquit tree; where she again sits listening.
Not long, before discovering that the horsemen have commenced advancing towards her--not along the travelled trail, but through the thicket! And not all together, but as if they had separated, and were endeavouring to accomplish a surround!
She can tell this, by hearing the hoof-strokes in different directions: all going gently, but evidently diverging from each other; while the riders are preserving a profound silence, ominous either of cunning or caution--perhaps of evil intent?
They may have discovered her position? The neighing of her steed has betrayed it? They may be riding to get round her--in order to advance from different sides, and make sure of her capture?
How is she to know that their intent is not hostile? She has enemies-- one well remembered--Don Miguel Diaz. Besides, there are the Comanches--to be distrusted at all times, and now no longer en paz.
She begins to feel alarm. It has been long in arising; but the behaviour of the unseen horsemen is at least suspicious. Ordinary travellers would have continued along the trail. These are sneaking through the chapparal!
She looks around her, scanning her place of concealment. She examines, only to distrust it. The thin, feathery frondage of the mezquit will not screen her from an eye passing near. The hoof-strokes tell, that more than one cavalier is coming that way. She must soon be discovered.
At the thought, she strikes the spur into her horse's side, and rides out from the thicket. Then, turning along the trail, she trots on into the open plain, that extends towards the Alamo.
Her intention is to go two or three hundred yards--beyond range of arrow, or bullet--then halt, until she can discover the character of those who are advancing--whether friends, or to be feared.
If the latter, she will trust to the speed of her gallant grey to carry her on to the protection of the "Tejanos."
She does not make the intended halt. She is hindered by the horsemen, at that moment seen bursting forth from among the bushes, simultaneously with each other, and almost as soon as herself!
They spring out at different points; and, in converging lines, ride rapidly towards her!
A glance shows them to be men of bronze-coloured skins, and half naked bodies--with red paint on their faces, and scarlet feathers sticking up out of their hair.
"Los Indios!" mechanically mutters the Mexican, as, driving the rowels against the ribs of her steed, she goes off at full gallop for the alhuehuete.
A quick glance behind shows her she is pursued; though she knows it without that. The glance tells her more,--that the pursuit is close and earnest--so earnest that the Indians, contrary to their usual custom, do not yell!
Their silence speaks of a determination to capture her; and as if by a plan already preconcerted!
Hitherto she has had but little fear of an encounter with the red rovers of the prairie. For years have they been en paz--both with Texans and Mexicans; and the only danger to be dreaded from them was a little rudeness when under the influence of drink--just as a lady, in civilised life, may dislike upon a lonely road, to meet a crowd of "navigators," who have been spending their day at the beer-house.
Isidora has passed through a peril of this kind, and remembers it--with less pain from the thought of the peril itself, than the ruin it has led to.
But her danger is different now. The peace is past. There is war upon the wind. Her pursuers are no longer intoxicated with the fire-water of their foes. They are thirsting for blood; and she flies to escape not only dishonour, but it may be death!
On over that open plain, with all the speed she can take out of her horse,--all that whip, and spur, and voice can accomplish!
She alone speaks. Her pursuers are voiceless--silent as spectres!
Only once does she glance behind. There are still but four of them; but four is too many against one--and that one a woman!
There is no hope, unless she can get within hail of the Texans.
She presses on for the alhuehuete.
Chapter Sixty Seven
LOS INDIOS!
The chased equestrian is within three hundred yards of the bluff, over which the tree towers. She once more glances behind her.
"Dios me ampare!" (God preserve me.)
God preserve her! She will be too late!
The foremost of her pursuers has lifted the lazo from his saddle horn: he is winding it over his head!
Before she can reach the head of the pass, the noose will be around her neck, and then--
And then, a sudden thought flashes into her mind--thought that promises escape from the threatened strangulation.
The cliff that overlooks the Alamo is nearer than the gorge, by which the creek bottom must be reached. She remembers that its crest is visible from the jacale.
With a quick jerk upon the rein, she diverges from her course; and, instead of going on for the alhuehuete, she rides directly towards the bluff.
The change puzzles her pursuers--at the same time giving them gratification. They well know the "lay" of the land. They understand the trending of the cliff; and are now confident of a capture.
The leader takes a fresh hold of his lazo, to make more sure of the throw. He is only restrained from launching it, by the certainty she cannot escape.
"Chingaro!" mutters he to himself, "if she go much farther, she'll be over the precipice!"
His reflection is false. She goes farther, but not over the precipice. With another quick pull upon the rein she has changed her course, and rides along the edge of it--so close as to attract the attention of the "Tejanos" below, and elicit from Zeb Stump that quaint exclamation--only heard upon extraordinary occasions--
"Geesus Geehosofat!"
As if in answer to the exclamation of the old hunter--or rather to the interrogatory with which he has followed it up--comes the cry of the strange equestrian who has shown herself on the cliff.
"Los Indios! Los Indios!"
No one who has spent three days in Southern Texas could mistake the meaning of that phrase--whatever his native tongue. It is the alarm cry which, for three hundred years, has been heard along three thousand miles of frontier, in three different languages--"Les Indiens! Los Indios! the Indians!"
Dull would be the ear, slow the intellect, that did not at once comprehend it, along with the sense of its associated danger.
To those who hear it at the jacale it needs no translation. They know that she, who has given utterance to it, is pursued by Indians--as certain as if the fact had been announced in their own Saxon vernacular.
They have scarce time to translate it into this--even in thought--when the same voice a second time salutes their ears:--"Tejanos! Cavalleros! save me! save me! Los Indios! I am chased by a troop. They are behind me--close--close--"
Her speech, though continued, is no longer heard distinctly. It is no longer required to explain what is passing upon the plain above.
She has cleared the first clump of tree tops by scarce twenty yards, when the leading savage shoots out from the same cover, and is seen, going in full gallop, against the clear sky.
Like a sling he spins the lazo loop around his head. So eager is he to throw it with sure aim, that he does not appear to take heed of what the fugitive has said--spoken as she went at full speed: for she made no stop, while calling out to the "Tejanos." He may fancy it has been addressed to himself--a final appeal for mercy, uttered in a language he does not understand: for Isidora had spoken in English.
He is only undeceived, as the sharp crack of a rifle comes echoing out of the glen,--or perhaps a little sooner, as a stinging sensation in his wrist causes him to let go his lazo, and look wonderingly for the why!
He perceives a puff of sulphureous smoke rising from below.
A single glance is sufficient to cause a change in his tactics. In that glance he beholds a hundred men, with the gleam of a hundred gun barrels!
His three followers see them at the same time; and as if moved by the same impulse, all four turn in their tracks, and gallop away from the cliff--quite as quickly as they have been approaching it.
"'Tur a pity too," says Zeb Stump, proceeding to reload his rifle. "If 't hedn't a been for the savin' o' her, I'd a let 'em come on down the gully. Ef we ked a captered them, we mout a got somethin' out o' 'em consarnin' this queer case o' ourn. Thur aint the smell o' a chance now. It's clur they've goed off; an by the time we git up yander, they'll be hellurd."
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The sight of the savages has produced another quick change in the tableau formed in front of the mustanger's hut--a change squally sudden in the thoughts of those who compose it.
The majority who deemed Maurice Gerald a murderer has become transformed into a minority; while those who believed him innocent are now the men whose opinions are respected.
Calhoun and his bullies are no longer masters of the situation; and on the motion of their chief the Regulator Jury is adjourned. The new programme is cast in double quick time. A score of words suffice to describe it. The accused is to be carried to the settlement--there to be tried according to the law of the land.
And now for the Indians--whose opportune appearance has caused this sudden change, both of sentiment and design. Are they to be pursued? That of course. But when? Upon the instant? Prudence says, no.
Only four have been seen. But these are not likely to be alone. They may be the rear-guard of four hundred?
"Let us wait till the woman comes down," counsels one of the timid. "They have not followed her any farther. I think I can hear her riding this way through the gulley. Of course she knows it--as it was she who directed us."
The suggestion appears sensible to most upon the ground. They are not cowards. Still there are but few of them, who have encountered the wild Indian in actual strife; and many only know his more debased brethren in the way of trade.
The advice is adopted. They stand waiting for the approach of Isidora.
All are now by their horses; and some have sought shelter among the trees. There are those who have an apprehension: that along with the Mexican, or close after her, may still come a troop of Comanches.
A few are otherwise occupied--Zeb Stump among the number. He takes the gag from between the teeth of the respited prisoner, and unties the thongs hitherto holding him too fast.
There is one who watches him with a strange interest, but takes no part in the proceeding. Her part has been already played--perhaps too prominently. She shuns the risk of appearing farther conspicuous.
Where is the niece of Don Silvio Mortimez? She has not yet come upon the ground! The stroke of her horse's hoof is no longer heard! There has been time--more than time--for her to have reached the jacale!
Her non-appearance creates surprise--apprehension--alarm. There are men there who admire the Mexican maiden--it is not strange they should--some who have seen her before, and some who never saw her until that day.
Can it be, that she has been overtaken and captured? The interrogatory passes round. No one can answer it; though all are interested in the answer.
The Texans begin to feel something like shame. Their gallantry was appealed to, in that speech sent them from the cliff, "Tejanos! Cavalleros!"
Has she who addressed it succumbed to the pursuer? Is that beauteous form in the embrace of a paint-bedaubed savage?
They listen with ears intent,--many with pulses that beat high, and hearts throbbing with a keen anxiety.
They listen in vain.
There is no sound of hoof--no voice of woman--nothing, except the champing of bitts heard close by their side!
Can it be that she is taken?
Now that the darker design is stifled within their breasts, the hostility against one of their own race is suddenly changed into a more congenial channel.
Their vengeance, rekindled, burns fiercer than ever--since it is directed against the hereditary foe.
The younger and more ardent--among whom are the admirers of the Mexican maiden--can bear the uncertainty no longer. They spring into their saddles, loudly declaring their determination to seek her--to save her, or perish in the attempt.
Who is to gainsay them? Her pursuers--her captors perhaps--may be the very men they have been in search of--the murderers of Henry Poindexter!
No one opposes their intent. They go off in search of Isidora--in pursuit of the prairie pirates.
Those who remain are but few in number; though Zeb Stump is among them.
The old hunter is silent, as to the expediency of pursuing the Indians. He keeps his thoughts to himself: his only seeming care is to look after the invalid prisoner--still unconscious--still guarded by the Regulators.
Zeb is not the only friend who remains true to the mustanger in his hour of distress. There are two others equally faithful. One a fair creature, who watches at a distance, carefully concealing the eager interest that consumes her. The other, a rude, almost ludicrous individual, who, close by his side, addresses the respited man as his "masther." The last is Phelim, who has just descended from his perch among the parasites of an umbrageous oak--where he has for some time stayed--a silent spectator of all that has been transpiring. The change of situation has tempted him back to earth, and the performance of that duty for which he came across the Atlantic.
No longer lies our scene upon the Alamo. In another hour the jacale is deserted--perhaps never more to extend its protecting roof over Maurice the mustanger.
Chapter Sixty Eight
THE DISAPPOINTED CAMPAIGNERS.
The campaign against the Comanches proved one of the shortest--lasting only three or four days. It was discovered that these Ishmaelites of the West did not mean war--at least, on a grand scale. Their descent upon the settlements was only the freak of some young fellows, about to take out their degree as braves, desirous of signalising the event by "raising" a few scalps, and capturing some horses and horned cattle.
Forays of this kind are not unfrequent among the Texan Indians. They are made on private account--often without the knowledge of the chief, or elders of the tribe--just as an ambitious young mid, or ensign, may steal off with a score of companions from squadron or camp, to cut out an enemy's craft, or capture his picket guard. These marauds are usually made by young Indians out on a hunting party, who wish to return home with something to show besides the spoils of the chase; and the majority of the tribe is often ignorant of them till long after the event. Otherwise, they might be interdicted by the elders; who, as a general thing, are averse to such filibustering expeditions--deeming them not only imprudent, but often injurious to the interests of the community. Only when successful are they applauded.
On the present occasion several young Comanches had taken out their war-diploma, by carrying back with them the scalps of a number of white women and boys. The horses and horned cattle were also collected; but these, being less convenient of transport than the light scalp-locks, had been recaptured.
The red-skinned filibusters, overtaken by a detachment of Mounted Rifles, among the hills of the San Saba, were compelled to abandon their four-footed booty, and only saved their own skins by a forced retreat into the fastnesses of the "Llano Estacado."
To follow them beyond the borders of this sterile tract would have required a commissariat less hastily established than that with which the troops had sallied forth; and, although the relatives of the scalped settlers clamoured loudly for retaliation, it could only be promised them after due time and preparation.
On discovering that the Comanches had retreated beyond their neutral ground, the soldiers of Uncle Sam had no choice but to return to their ordinary duties--each detachment to its own fort--to await further commands from the head-quarters of the "department."
The troops belonging to Port Inge--entrusted with the guardianship of the country as far as the Rio Nueces--were surprised on getting back to their cantonment to discover that they had been riding in the wrong direction for an encounter with the Indians! Some of them were half mad with disappointment: for there were several--young Hancock among the number--who had not yet run their swords through a red-skin, though keenly desirous of doing so!
No doubt there is inhumanity in the idea. But it must be remembered, that these ruthless savages have given to the white man peculiar provocation, by a thousand repetitions of three diabolical crimes--rape, rapine, and murder.
To talk of their being the aborigines of the country--the real, but dispossessed, owners of the soil--is simple nonsense. This sophism, of the most spurious kind, has too long held dominion over the minds of men. The whole human race has an inherent right to the whole surface of the earth: and if any infinitesimal fraction of the former by chance finds itself idly roaming over an extended portion of the latter, their exclusive claim to it is almost too absurd for argument--even with the narrowest-minded disciple of an aborigines society.
Admit it--give the hunter his half-dozen square miles--for he will require that much to maintain him--leave him in undisputed possession to all eternity--and millions of fertile acres must remain untilled, to accommodate this whimsical theory of national right. Nay, I will go further, and risk reproach, by asserting:--that not only the savage, so called, but civilised people should be unreservedly dispossessed-- whenever they show themselves incapable of turning to a good account the resources which Nature has placed within their limits.
The exploitation of Earth's treasures is a question not confined to nations. It concerns the whole family of mankind.
In all this there is not one iota of agrarian doctrine--not a thought of it. He who makes these remarks is the last man to lend countenance to communism.
It is true that, at the time spoken of, there were ruffians in Texas who held the life of a red-skin at no higher value than an English gamekeeper does that of a stoat, or any other vermin, that trespasses on his preserves. No doubt these ruffians are there still: for ten years cannot have effected much change in the morality of the Texan frontier.
But, alas! we must now be a little cautious about calling names. Our own story of Jamaica--by heaven! the blackest that has blotted the pages of history--has whitewashed these border filibusteros to the seeming purity of snow!
If things are to be judged by comparison, not so fiendish, then, need appear the fact, that the young officers of Fort Inge were some little chagrined at not having an opportunity to slay a score or so of red-skins. On learning that, during their absence, Indians had been seen on the other side, they were inspired by a new hope. They might yet find the opportunity of fleshing their swords, transported without stain--without sharpening, too--from the military school of West Point.
It was a fresh disappointment to them, when a party came in on the same day--civilians who had gone in pursuit of the savages seen on the Alamo--and reported: that no Indians had been there!
They came provided with proofs of their statement, which otherwise would have been received with incredulity--considering what had occurred.
The proofs consisted in a collection of miscellaneous articles--an odd lot, as an auctioneer would describe it--wigs of horse-hair, cocks' feathers stained blue, green, or scarlet, breech-clouts of buckskin, mocassins of the same material, and several packages of paint, all which they had found concealed in the cavity of a cottonwood tree!
There could be no new campaign against Indians; and the aspiring spirits of Fort Inge were, for the time, forced to content themselves with such incidents as the situation afforded.
Notwithstanding its remoteness from any centre of civilised life, these were at the time neither tame nor uninteresting. There were several subjects worth thinking and talking about. There was the arrival, still of recent date, of the most beautiful woman ever seen upon the Alamo; the mysterious disappearance and supposed assassination of her brother; the yet more mysterious appearance of a horseman without a head; the trite story of a party of white men "playing Indian"; and last, though not of least interest, the news that the suspected murderer had been caught, and was now inside the walls of their own guardhouse--mad as a maniac!
There were other tales told to the disappointed campaigners--of sufficient interest to hinder them from thinking: that at Fort Inge they had returned to dull quarters. The name of Isidora Covarubio do los Llanos--with her masculine, but magnificent, beauty--had become a theme of conversation, and something was also said, or surmised, about her connection with the mystery that occupied all minds.
The details of the strange scenes upon the Alamo--the discovery of the mustanger upon his couch--the determination to hang him--the act delayed by the intervention of Louise Poindexter--the respite due to the courage of Zeb Stump--were all points of the most piquant interest--suggestive of the wildest conjectures.
Each became in turn the subject of converse and commentary, but none was discussed with more earnestness than that which related to the innocence, or guilt, of the man accused of murder.
"Murder," said the philosophic Captain Sloman, "is a crime which, in my opinion, Maurice the mustanger is incapable of committing. I think, I know the fellow well enough to be sure about that."
"You'll admit," rejoined Crossman, of the Rifles, "that the circumstances are strong against him? Almost conclusive, I should say."
Crossman had never felt friendly towards the young Irishman. He had an idea, that on one occasion the commissary's niece--the belle of the Fort--had looked too smilingly on the unknown adventurer.
"I consider it anything but conclusive," replied Sloman.
"There's no doubt about young Poindexter being dead, and having been murdered. Every one believes that. Well; who else was likely to have done it? The cousin swears to having overheard a quarrel between him and Gerald."
"That precious cousin would swear to anything that suited his purpose," interposed Hancock, of the Dragoons. "Besides, his own shindy with the same man is suggestive of suspicion--is it not?"
"And if there was a quarrel," argued the officer of infantry, "what then? It don't follow there was a murder."
"Then you think the fellow may have killed Poindexter in a fair fight?"
"Something of the sort is possible, and even probable. I will admit that much."
"But what did they have a difficulty about?" asked Hancock. "I heard that young Poindexter was on friendly terms with the horse-hunter-- notwithstanding what had happened between him and Calhoun. What could they have quarrelled about?"
"A singular interrogation on your part, Lieutenant Hancock!" answered the infantry officer, with a significant emphasis on the pronoun. "As if men ever quarrelled about anything except--"
"Except women," interrupted the dragoon with a laugh.
"But which woman, I wonder? It could not be anything relating to young Poindexter's sister?"
"Quien sabe?" answered Sloman, repeating the Spanish phrase with an ambiguous shrug of the shoulders.
"Preposterous!" exclaimed Crossman. "A horse-catcher daring to set his thoughts on Miss Poindexter! Preposterous!"
"What a frightful aristocrat you are, Crossman! Don't you know that love is a natural democrat; and mocks your artificial ideas of distinction. I don't say that in this case there's been anything of the kind. Miss Poindexter's not the only woman that might have caused a quarrel between the two individuals in question. There are other damsels in the settlement worth getting angry about--to say nothing of our own fair following in the Fort; and why not--"
"Captain Sloman," petulantly interrupted the lieutenant of Rifles. "I must say that, for a man of your sense, you talk very inconsiderately. The ladies of the garrison ought to be grateful to you for the insinuation."
"What insinuation, sir?"
"Do you suppose it likely that there's one of them would condescend to speak to the person you've named?"
"Which? I've named two."
"You understand me well enough, Sloman; and I you. Our ladies will, no doubt, feel highly complimented at having their names connected with that of a low adventurer, a horse-thief, and suspected assassin!"
"Maurice the mustanger may be the last--suspected, and that is all. He is neither of the two first; and as for our ladies being above speech with him, in that as in many other things, you may be mistaken, Mr Crossman. I've seen more of this young Irishman than you--enough to satisfy me that, so far as breeding goes, he may compare notes with the best of us. Our grand dames needn't be scared at the thought of his acquaintance; and, since you have raised the question, I don't think they would shy from it--some of them at least--if it were offered them. It never has. So far as I have observed, the young fellow has behaved with a modesty that betokens the true gentleman. I have seen him in their presence more than once, and he has conducted himself towards them as if fully sensible of his position. For that matter, I don't think he cares a straw about one or other of them."
"Indeed! How fortunate for those, who might otherwise have been his rivals!"
"Perhaps it is," quietly remarked the captain of infantry.
"Who knows?" asked Hancock, intentionally giving a turn to the ticklish conversation. "Who knows but the cause of quarrel--if there's been one--might not be this splendid senorita so much talked about? I haven't seen her myself; but, by all accounts, she's just the sort to make two fellows as jealous as a pair of tiger-cats."
"It might be--who knows?" drawled Crossman, who found contentment in the thought that the handsome Irishman might have his amorous thoughts turned in any other direction than towards the commissary's quarters.
"They've got him in the guard-house," remarked Hancock, stating a fact that had just been made known to him: for the conversation above detailed occurred shortly after their return from the Comanche campaign. "His droll devil of a serving man is along with him. What's more; the major has just issued an order to double the guard! What does it mean, Captain Sloman--you who know so much of this fellow and his affairs? Surely there's no danger of his making an attempt to steal out of his prison?"
"Not likely," replied the infantry officer, "seeing that he hasn't the slightest idea that he's inside of one. I've just been to the guard-house to have a look at him. He's mad as a March hare; and wouldn't know his own face in a looking-glass."
"Mad! In what way?" asked Hancock and the others, who were yet but half enlightened about the circumstances of the mustanger's capture.
"A brain fever upon him--delirious?"
"Is that why the guards have been doubled? Devilish queer if it is. The major himself must have gone mad!"
"Maybe it's the suggestion--command I should rather say--of the majoress. Ha! ha! ha!"
"But what does it mean? Is the old maje really afraid of his getting out of the guard-house?"
"No--not that, I fancy. More likely an apprehension of somebody else getting into it."
"Ah! you mean, that--"
"I mean that for Maurice the Mustanger there's more safety inside than out. Some queer characters are about; and there's been talk of another Lynch trial. The Regulators either repent of having allowed him a respite; or there's somebody hard at work in bringing about this state of public opinion. It's lucky for him that the old hunter has stood his friend; and it's but a continuation of his good luck that we've returned so opportunely. Another day, and we might have found the guardhouse empty--so far as its present occupants are concerned. Now, thank God! the poor fellow shall have a fair trial."
"When is it to take place?"
"Whenever he has recovered his senses, sufficiently to know that he's being tried!"
"It may be weeks before that."
"And it may be only days--hours. He don't appear to be very bad--that is, bodily. It's his mind that's out of order--more, perhaps, from some strange trouble that has come over him, than any serious hurt he has received. A day may make all the difference; and, from what I've just heard, the Regulators will insist on his being tried as soon as he shows a return to consciousness. They say, they won't wait for him to recover from his wounds!"
"Maybe he'll be able to tell a story that'll clear him. I hope so."
This was said by Hancock.
"I doubt it," rejoined Crossman, with an incredulous shake of the head. "Nous verrons!"
"I'm sure of it," said Sloman. "Nos veremos!" he added, speaking in a tone that seemed founded less upon confidence than a wish that was father to the thought.
Chapter Sixty Nine
MYSTERY AND MOURNING.
There is mourning in the mansion of Casa del Corvo, and mystery among the members of Woodley Poindexter's family.
Though now only three in number, their intercourse is less frequent than before, and marked by a degree of reserve that must spring from some deep-seated cause.
They meet only at the hour of meals--then conversing only on such topics as cannot well be shunned.
There is ample explanation of the sorrow, and much of the solemnity.
The death--no longer doubted--of an only son--an only brother-- unexpected and still unexplained--should account for the melancholy mien both of father and daughter.
It might also explain the shadow seated constantly on the brow of the cousin.
But there is something beyond this. Each appears to act with an irksome restraint in the presence of the others--even during the rare occasions, on which it becomes necessary to converse on the family misfortune!
Beside the sorrow common to all three, they appear to have separate griefs that do not, and cannot, commingle.
The once proud planter stays within doors--pacing from room to room, or around, the enclosed corridor--bending beneath a weight of woe, that has broken down his pride, and threatens to break his heart. Even strong paternal affection, cruelly bereaved, can scarce account for the groans, oft accompanied by muttered curses, that are heard to issue from his lips!
Calhoun rides abroad as of yore; making his appearance only at the hours of eating and sleeping, and not regularly then.
For a whole day, and part of a night, he has been absent from the place. No one knows where; no one has the right to inquire.
Louise confines herself to her own room, though not continuously. There are times when she may be seen ascending to the azotea--alone and in silent meditation.
There, nearer to Heaven, she seeks solace for the sorrows that have assailed her upon Earth--the loss of a beloved brother--the fear of losing one far more beloved, though in a different sense--perhaps, a little also, the thought of a scandal already attaching to her name.
Of these three sorrows the second is the strongest. The last but little troubles her; and the first, for a while keenly felt, is gradually growing calmer.
But the second--the supreme pain of all--is but strengthened and intensified by time!
She knows that Maurice Gerald is shut up within the walls of a prison-- the strong walls of a military guard-house.
It is not their strength that dismays her. On the contrary, she has fears for their weakness!
She has reasons for her apprehension. She has heard of the rumours that are abroad; rumours of sinister significance. She has heard talk of a second trial, under the presidency of Judge Lynch and his rude coadjutors--not the same Judge Lynch who officiated in the Alamo, nor all of the same jury; but a court still less scrupulous than that of the Regulators; composed of the ruffianism, that at any hour can be collected within the bounds of a border settlement--especially when proximate to a military post.
The reports that have thus gone abroad are to some a subject of surprise. Moderate people see no reason why the prisoner should be again brought to trial in that irregular way.
The facts, that have late come to light, do not alter the case--at least, in any way to strengthen the testimony against him.
If the four horsemen seen were not Indians--and this has been clearly shown by the discovery of the disguises--it is not the less likely that they have had to do with the death of young Poindexter. Besides, there is nothing to connect them with the mustanger, any more than if they had been real Comanches.
Why, then, this antipathy against the respited prisoner, for the second time surging up?
There is a strangeness about the thing that perplexes a good many people.
There are a few that understand, or suspect, the cause. A very few: perhaps only three individuals.
Two of them are Zeb Stump and Louise Poindexter; the third Captain Cassius Calhoun.
The old hunter, with instinct keenly on the alert, has discovered some underhanded action--the actors being Miguel Diaz and his men, associated with a half-score of like characters of a different race--the "rowdies" of the settlement. Zeb has traced the action to its instigator--the ex-captain of volunteer cavalry.
He has communicated his discovery to the young Creole, who is equal to the understanding of it. It is the too clear comprehension of its truth that now inspires her with a keen solicitude.
Anxiously she awaits every word of news--watches the road leading from the Fort to Casa del Corvo, as if the sentence of her own death, or the security of her life, hung upon the lips of some courier to come that way!
She dares not show herself at the prison. There are soldiers on guard, and spectators around it--a crowd of the idle curious, who, in all countries, seem to feel some sort of sombre enjoyment in the proximity of those who have committed great crimes.
There is an additional piquancy in the circumstances of this one. The criminal is insane; or, at all events, for the time out of his senses.
The guard-house doors are at all hours besieged--to the great discomfort of the sentries--by people eager to listen to the mutterings of the delirious man. A lady could not pass in without having scores of eyes turned inquiringly upon her. Louise Poindexter cannot run the gauntlet of those looks without risk to her reputation.
Left to herself, perhaps she would have attempted it. Watched by a father whose suspicions are already awakened; by a near relation, equally interested in preserving her spotless, before the eyes of the world--she has no opportunity for the act of imprudence.
She can only stay at home; now shut up in her solitary chamber, solaced by the remembrance of those ravings to which she had listened upon the Alamo; now upon the azotea, cheered by the recollection of that sweet time spent among the mezquite trees, the spot itself almost discernible, where she had surrendered the proudest passion of her heart; but saddened by the thought that he to whom she surrendered it is now humiliated--disgraced--shut up within the walls of a gaol--perchance to be delivered from it only unto death!
To her it was happy tidings, when, upon the morning of the fourth day, Zeb Stump made his appearance at Casa del Corro, bringing the intelligence; that the "hoss-sogers hed kum back to the Fort."
There was significance in the news thus ungrammatically imparted. There was no longer a danger of the perpetration of that foul act hitherto apprehended: a prisoner taken from his guards, not for rescue, but ruin!
"Ee needn't be uneezy 'beout thet ere ewent," said Zeb, speaking with a confidence he had not shown for some time. "Thur's no longer a danger o' it comin' to pass, Miss Lewaze. I've tuk preecaushins agin it."
"Precautions! How, Zeb?"
"Wal; fust place, I've seed the major clost arter his comin' back, an gied him a bit o' my mind. I tolt him the hul story, as fur's I know it myself. By good luck he ain't agin the young fellur, but the tother way I reck'n. Wal, I tolt him o' the goin's on o' the hul crew--Amerikins, Mexikins, an all o' them--not forgettin' thet ugly Spanyard o' the name o' Dee-ez, thet's been one o' the sarciest o' the lot. The ree-sult's been thet the major hez doubled the sentries roun' the prison, an's goin' to keep 'em doubled."
"I am so glad! You think there is no longer any fear from that quarter?"
"If you mean the quarter o' Mister Migooel Dee-ez, I kin swar to it. Afore he thinks o' gittin' any b'dy else out o' a prison, he's got to git hisself out."
"What; Diaz in prison! How? When? Where?"
"You've asked three seprit questyuns, Miss Lewaze, all o' a heep. Wal; I reck'n the conveenientest way to answer 'em 'll be to take 'em backurds. An' fust as to the whar. As to thet, thur's but one prison in these parts, as 'ud be likely to hold him. Thet is the guard-house at the Fort. He's thur."
"Along with--"
"I know who ye're goin' to name--the young fellur. Jest so. They're in the same buildin', tho' not 'zackly in the same room. Thur's a purtition atween 'em; tho' for thet matter they kin convarse, ef they're so inclined. Thur's three others shet up along wi' the Mexikin--his own cussed cummarades. The three 'll have somethin' to talk 'beout 'mong themselves, I reck'n."
"This is good news, Zeb. You told me yesterday that Diaz was active in--"
"Gittin' hisself into a scrape, which he hev been successful in effectuatin'. He's got hisself into the jug, or someb'y else hev did thet bizness for him."
"But how--when--you've not told me?"
"Geehosophat! Miss Lewaze. Gi' me a leetle time. I hain't drew breath yit, since I kim in. Yur second questyun war when. It air eezy answered. 'Beout a hour agone thet ere varmint wur trapped an locked up. I war at the shettin' o' the door ahint him, an kum straight custrut hyur arter it war done."
"But you have not yet said why he is arrested."
"I hain't hed a chance. It air a longish story, an 'll take a leetle time in the tellin'. Will ye listen to it now, or arter--?"
"After what, Mr Stump?"
"Wal, Miss Lewaze, I only meened arter--arter--I git the ole mare put up. She air stannin' thur, as if she'd like to chaw a yeer o' corn, an somethin' to wet it down. Both she 'nd me's been on a longish tramp afore we got back to the Fort; which we did scace a hour ago."
"Pardon me, dear Mr Stump, for not thinking of it. Pluto; take Mr Stump's horse to the stable, and see that it is fed. Florinde! Florinde! What will you eat, Mr Stump?"
"Wal, as for thet, Miss Lewaze, thank ye all the same, but I ain't so partikler sharp set. I war only thinkin' o' the maar. For myself, I ked go a kupple o' hours longer 'ithout eetin', but ef thur's sech a thing as a smell o' Monongaheely 'beout the place, it 'ud do this ole karkidge o' mine a power o' good."
"Monongahela? plenty of it. Surely you will allow me to give you something better?"
"Better 'n Monongaheely!"
"Yes. Some sherry--champagne--brandy if you prefer it."
"Let them drink brandy as like it, and kin' git it drinkable. Thur may be some o' it good enuf; an ef thur air, I'm shor it'll be foun' in the house o' a Peintdexter. I only knows o' the sort the sutler keeps up at the Fort. Ef thur ever wur a medicine, thet's one. It 'ud rot the guts out o' a alleygatur. No; darn thur French lickers; an specially thur brandy. Gi' me the pure corn juice; an the best o' all, thet as comes from Pittsburgh on the Monongaheely."
"Florinde! Florinde!"
It was not necessary to tell the waiting-maid for what she was wanted. The presence of Zeb Stump indicated the service for which she had been summoned. Without waiting to receive the order she went off, and the moment after returned, carrying a decanter half-filled with what Zeb called the "pure corn juice," but which was in reality the essence of rye--for from this grain is distilled the celebrated "Monongahela."
Zeb was not slow to refresh himself. A full third of the contents of the decanter were soon put out of sight--the other two-thirds remaining for future potations that might be required in the course of the narration upon which he was about to enter.
Chapter Seventy
GO, ZEB, AND GOD SPEED YOU!
The old hunter never did things in a hurry. Even his style of drinking was not an exception; and although there was no time wasted, he quaffed the Monongahela in a formal leisurely manner.
The Creole, impatient to hear what he had to relate, did not wait for him to resume speech.
"Tell me, dear Zeb," said she, after directing her maid to withdraw, "why have they arrested this Mexican--Miguel Diaz I mean? I think I know something of the man. I have reasons."
"An' you ain't the only purson may hev reezuns for knowin' him, Miss Lewaze. Yur brother--but never mind 'beout that--leastwise not now. What Zeb Stump do know, or strongly surspect, air, thet this same-mentioned Migooel Dee-ez hev had somethin' to do wi'--You know what I'm refarrin' to?"
"Go on, Mr Stump!"
"Wal, the story air this. Arter we kim from the Alamo Crik, the fellurs that went in sarch o' them Injuns, foun' out they wan't Injuns at all. Ye hev heern that yurself. From the fixins that war diskevered in the holler tree, it air clur that what we seed on the Bluff war a party o' whites. I hed a surspishun o't myself--soon as I seed them curds they'd left ahint 'em in the shanty."
"It was the same, then, who visited the jacale at night--the same Phalim saw?"
"Ne'er a doubt o' it. Them same Mexikins."
"What reason have you to think they were Mexicans?"
"The best o' all reezuns. I foun' 'em out to be; traced the hul kit o' 'em to thur cache."
The young Creole made no rejoinder. Zeb's story promised a revelation that might be favourable to her hopes. She stood resignedly waiting for him to continue.
"Ye see, the curds, an also some words, the which the Irish war able to sort o' pernounce, arter a fashun o' his own, tolt me they must a been o' the yeller-belly breed; an sartint 'bout that much, I war able to gie a tol'able guess as to whar they hed kim from. I know'd enuf o' the Mexikins o' these parts to think o' four as answered thar descripshun to a T. As to the Injun duds, thar warn't nuthin' in them to bamboozle me. Arter this, I ked a gone straight to the hul four fellurs, an pinted 'em out for sartin. One o' 'em, for sure sartin. On him I'd made my mark. I war confident o' havin' did thet."
"Your mark! How, Zeb?"
"Ye remimber the shot I fired from the door o' the shanty?"
"Oh, certainly! I did not see the Indians. I was under the trees at the time. I saw you discharge your rifle at something."
"Wal, Miss Lewaze; this hyur coon don't often dischurge thet thur weepun 'ithout drawin' blood. I know'd I hut the skunk; but it war rayther fur for the carry o' the piece, an I reckon'd the ball war a bit spent. F'r all that, I know'd it must a stung him. I seed him squirm to the shot, an I says to myself: Ef ther ain't a hole through his hide somewhar, this coon won't mind changin' skins wi' him. Wal, arter they kim home wi' the story o' whites instead o' red-skins, I hed a tol'able clur idee o' who the sham Injuns wur, an ked a laid my claws on 'em at any minnit. But I didn't."
"And why not, Mr Stump? Surely you haven't allowed them to get away? They might be the very men who are guilty of my poor brother's--"
"That's jest what this coon thort, an it war for that reezun I let 'em slide. There war another reezun besides. I didn't much like goin' fur from the Port, leest somethin' ugly mout turn up in my absince. You unnerstan'? There war another reezun still for not prospectin' arter them jest then. I wanted to make shur o' my game."
"And you have?"
"Shur as shootin'. I guessed thur wan't goin' to be any rain, an thurfor thur war no immeedyit hurry as to what I intended doin'. So I waited till the sogers shed get back, an I ked safely leave him in the guard-house. Soon as they kim in, I tuk the ole maar and rud out to the place whar our fellurs had struck upon the fixing. I eezy foun' it by thur descripshun. Wal; as they'd only got that greenhorn, Spangler, to guide 'em, I war putty sure the sign hedn't been more'n helf read; an that I'd get somethin' out o' it, beside what they'd brought away."
"I wan't disappinted. The durndest fool as ever set fut upon a purayra, mout a follered the back track o' them make-believe Kimanchees. A storekeeper ked a traced it acrost the purayra, though it appears neyther Mister Spangler nor any o' the others did. I foun' it eezy as fallin' off o' a log, not 'ithstandin' thet the sarchers had rud all over it. I tracked every hoss o' the four counterfits to his own stable."
"After that?"
"Arter doin' thet I hed a word wi' the major; an in helf an hour at the most the four beauties wur safe shot up in the guardhouse--the chief o' 'em bein' jugged fust, leest he mout get wind o' what wur goin' forrard, an sneak out o' the way. I wan't fur astray 'beout Mister Migooel Dee-ez bearin' my mark. We foun' the tar o' a bullet through the fleshy part o' his dexter wing; an thet explained why he wur so quick at lettin' go his laryette."
"It was he, then!" mechanically remarked Louise, as she stood reflecting.
"Very strange!" she continued, still muttering the words to herself. "He it was I saw in the chapparal glade! Yes, it must have been! And the woman--this Mexican--Isidora? Ah! There is some deep mystery in all this--some dark design! Who can unravel it?"
"Tell me, dear Zeb," she asked, stepping closer to the old hunter, and speaking with a cartain degree of hesitancy. "That woman--the Mexican lady I mean--who--who was out there. Do you know if she has often visited him?"
"Him! Which him, Miss Lewaze?"
"Mr Gerald, I mean."
"She mout, an she moutn't--'ithout my knowin' eyther one or the tother. I ain't often thur myself. The place air out o' my usooal huntin' ground, an I only go now an then for the sake o' a change. The crik's fust rate for both deer an gobbler. If ye ask my opeenyun, I'd say that thet ere gurl heven't never been thur afore. Leestwise, I hain't heern o' it; an eft hed been so, I reckun Irish Pheelum ud a hed somethin' to say abeout it. Besides, I hev other reezuns for thinkin' so. I've only heern o' one o' the shemale sex bein' on a visit to thet shanty."
"Who?" quickly interrogated the Creole, the instant after regretting that she had asked the question--the colour coming to her cheeks, as she noticed the significant glance with which Zeb had accompanied his concluding remark.
"No matter," she continued, without waiting for the answer.
"So, Zeb," she went on, giving a quick turn to the conversation, "you think that these men have had to do with that which is causing sorrow to all of us,--these Mexicans?"
"To tell ye the truth, Miss Lewaze, I don't know zackly what to think. It air the most musteeriousest consarn as iver kim to pass on these hyur purayras. Sometimes I hev the idea that the Mexikins must a did it; while at others, I'm in the opposite way o' thinkin', an thet some'dy else hev hed a han' in the black bizness. I won't say who."
"Not him, Zeb; not him!"
"Not the mowstanger. No, neer a bit o' thet. Spite o' all that's sayed agin him, I hain't the leest surspishun o' his innersense."
"Oh! how is he to prove it? It is said, that the testimony is all against him! No one to speak a word in his behalf!"
"Wal, it ain't so sartint as to thet. Keepin' my eye upon the others, an his prison; I hain't hed much chance o' gettin' abeout. Thur's a opportunity now; an I mean to make use o' it. The purayra's a big book, Miss Peintdexter--a wonderful big book--for them as knows how to read the print o't. If not much o' a scholar otherways, Zeb'lon Stump hev larnt to do thet. Thur may be some testymoney that mout help him, scattered over the musquit grass--jest as I've heern a Methody preecher say, thur `war sarmints in stones, an books in runnin' brutes.' Eft air so, thur oughter be somethin' o' the kind scared up on the Alamo crik."
"You think you might discover some traces?"
"Wal; I'm goin' out to hev a look 'roun' me--speecially at the place whur I foun' the young fellur in the claws o' the spotted painter. I oughter gone afore now, but for the reezun I've tolt ye. Thank the Awlmighty! thur's been no wet--neer y drop; an whatsomiver sign's been made for a week past, kin be understood as well, as if it war did yisterday--that is by them as knows how to read it. I must start straight away, Miss Lewaze. I jest runned down to tell ye what hed been done at the Fort. Thur's no time to be throwed away. They let me in this mornin' to see the young fellur; an I'm sartin his head air gettin' clurrer. Soon as it air all right, the Reg'lators say, they'll insist on the trial takin' place. It may be in less'n three days; an I must git back afore it begins."
"Go, Zeb, and God speed you on your generous errand! Come back with proofs of his innocence, and ever after I shall feel indebted to you for--for--more than life!"
Chapter Seventy One
THE SORELL HORSE.
Inspired by this passionate appeal, the hunter hastened towards the stable, where he had stalled his unique specimen of horseflesh.
He found the "critter" sonorously shelling some corn-cobs, which Pluto had placed liberally before her.
Pluto himself was standing by her side.
Contrary to his usual habit, the sable groom was silent: though with an air anything but tranquil. He looked rather triste than excited.
It might be easily explained. The loss of his young master--by Pluto much beloved--the sorrow of his young mistress, equally estimated-- perhaps some scornful speeches which he had lately been treated to from the lips of Morinda--and still more likely a kick he had received from the boot-toe of Captain Cassius--for several days assuming sole mastery over the mansion--amply accounted for the unquiet expression observable on his countenance.
Zeb was too much occupied with his own thoughts to notice the sorrowful mien of the domestic. He was even in too great a hurry to let the old mare finish her meal of maize, which she stood greatly in need of.
Grasping her by the snout, he stuck the rusty snaffle between her teeth; pulled her long ears through the cracked leathern headstraps; and, turning her in the stall, was about to lead her out.
It was a reluctant movement on the part of the mare--to be dragged away from such provender as she rarely chanced to get between her jaws.
She did not turn without a struggle; and Zeb was obliged to pull vigorously on the bridle-rein before he could detach her muzzle from the manger.
"Ho! ho! Mass' Tump!" interposed Pluto. "Why you be go 'way in dat big hurry? De poor ole ma' she no half got u'm feed. Why you no let her fill her belly wif de corn? Ha! ha! It do her power o' good."
"Han't got time, nigger. Goin' off on a bit o' a jurney. Got abeout a hunderd mile to make in less 'an a kupple o' hours."
"Ho! ho! Dat ere de fassest kind o' trabbelin'. You 'm jokin', Mass' Tump?"
"No, I ain't."
"Gorramity! Wa--dey do make won'full journey on dese hyur prairas. I reck'n dat ere hoss must a trabbled two hunner mile de odder night."
"What hoss?"
"De ole sorrel dere--in dat furrest 'tand from de doos--Massa Cahoon hoss."
"What makes ye think he travelled two hunder mile?"
"Kase he turn home all kibbered ober wif de froff. Beside, he wa so done up he scace able walk, when dis chile lead um down to de ribba fo' gib um drink. Hee 'tagger like new-drop calf. Ho! ho! he wa broke down--he wa!"
"O' what night air ye palaverin', Plute?"
"Wha night? Le'ss see! Why, ob coas de night Massa Henry wa missed from de plantashun. Dat same night in de mornin', 'bout an hour atter de sun git up into de hebbings. I no see de ole sorrel afore den, kase I no out ob my skeeta-bar till after daylight. Den I kum 'cross to de 'table hya, an den I see dat quadrumpid all kibbered ober wif sweet an froff--lookin' like he'd swimmed through de big ribba, an pantin' 's if he jes finish a fo' mile race on de Metairie course at New Orlean."
"Who had him out thet night?"
"Doan know, Mass' Tump. Only dat nobody 'lowed to ride de sorrel 'cept Massa Cahoon hisself. Ho! ho! Ne'er a body 'lowed lay leg ober dat critter."
"Why, wan't it himself that tuk the anymal out?"
"Doan know, Massa Tump; doan know de why nor de whafor. Dis chile neider see de Cap'n take um out nor fotch um in."
"If yur statement air true 'beout his bein' in sech a sweat, someb'dy must a hed him out, an been ridin' o' him."
"Ha! ha! Someb'dy muss, dat am certing."
"Looke hyur, Plute! Ye ain't a bad sort o' a darkie, though your skin air o' a sut colour. I reck'n you're tellin' the truth; an ye don't know who rud out the sorrel that night. But who do ye think it war? I'm only axin' because, as ye know, Mr Peintdexter air a friend o' mine, an I don't want his property to be abused--no more what belongs to Capen Calhoun. Some o' the field niggers, I reck'n, hev stole the anymal out o' the stable, an hev been ridin' it all roun' the country. That's it, ain't it?"
"Well, no, Mass' Tump. Dis chile doan believe dat am it. De fiel' hands not 'lowed inside hyur. Dey darn't kum in to de 'table no how. 'Twan't any nigger upon dis plantashun as tooked out de sorrel dat night."
"Durn it, then, who ked a tuk him out? Maybe the overseer? War it him d'ye think?"
"'Twan't him needer."
"Who then ked it be; unless it war the owner o' the hoss hisself? If so, thur's an end o' it. He hed the right to ride his critter wharever he pleased, an gallop it to hell ef thet war agreeable to him. It ain't no bizness o' myen."
"Ho! ho! Nor myen, needer, Mass' Tump. Wish I'd thought dat way dis mornin'."
"Why do ye weesh that? What happened this mornin' to change yur tune?"
"Ho! what happen dis mornin'? Dar happen to dis nigga a great misfortin'. Ho!--ho! berry great misfortin'."
"What war it?"
"Golly, Massa Tump, I'se got kicked--dis berry mornin', jes 'bout an hour arter twelve o'clock in de day."
"Kicked?"
"Dat I did shoo--all round de 'table."
"Oh! by the hosses! Which o' the brutes kicked ye?"
"Ho!--ho! you mistaken! Not any ob de hosses, but de massa ob dem all--'cept little Spotty da, de which he doan't own. I wa kicked by Mass' Cahoon."
"The hell ye wur! For what reezun? Ye must hev been misbehavin' yurself, nigger?"
"Dis nigga wan't mis-b'avin' 't all; not as he knows on. I only ask de cap'n what put de ole sorrel in such a dreful condishin dat ere night, an what make 'im be tired down. He say it not my bizness; an den he kick me; an den he larrup me wif de cow-hide; an den he threaten; an den he tell me, if I ebber 'peak bout dat same ting odder time, he gib me hunder lashes ob de wagon whip. He swa; oh! how he swa! Dis chile nebba see Mass Cahoon so mad--nebba, in all 'im life!"
"But whar's he now? I don't see him nowhar' beout the premises; an I reck'n he ain't rud out, seein' as the sorrel's hyur?"
"Golly, yes, Mass Tump; he jess am rode out at dis time. He ob late go berry much away from de house an tay long time."
"A hossback?"
"Jess so. He go on de steel grey. Ha!--ha! he doan' ride de sorrel much now. He hain't mount 'im once since de night de ole hoss wa out-- dat night we been 'peakin' 'bout. Maybe he tink he hab enuf hard ridin' den, an need long 'pell ob ress."
"Look'ee hyur, Plute," said Zeb, after standing silent for a second or two, apparently engaged in some abstruse calculation. "Arter all, I reck'n I'd better let the ole maar hev another yeer or two o' the corn. She's got a long spell o' travellin' afore her; an she mout break down on the jurney. The more haste air sometimes the wusser speed; an thurfor, I kalkerlate, I'd better gie the critter her time. While she's munchin' a mouthful, I ked do the same myself. 'Spose, then, you skoot acrosst to the kitchen, an see ef thur ain't some chawin' stuff thur--a bit o' cold meat an a pone o' corn bread 'll do. Yur young mistress wanted me to hev somethin' to eet; but I war skeert abeout delayin', an refused. Now, while I'm waitin' on the maar, I reck'n I ked pick a bone,--jest to pass the time."
"Sartin' ye cud, Mass Tump. I go fotch 'im in de hundreth part ob an instant."
So saying the black-skinned Jehu started off across the patio, leaving Zeb Stump sole "master of the stole."
The air of indifference with which he had concluded his dialogue with Pluto disappeared, the moment the latter was outside the door.
It had been altogether assumed: as was proved by the earnest attitude that instantly replaced it.
Striding across the paved causeway, that separated the two rows of stalls, he entered that occupied by the sorrel.
The animal shied off, and stood trembling against the wall--perhaps awed by the look of resolution with which the hunter had approached it.
"Stan' still, ye brute!" chided Zeb. "I don't mean no harm to you, tho' by yur looks I reck'n ye're as vicious as yur master. Stan' still, I say, an let's hev a look at yur fut-gear!"
So saying, he stooped forward, and made an attempt to lay hold of one of the fore-legs.
It was unsuccessful. The horse suddenly drew up his hoof; and commenced hammering the flags with it, snorting--as if in fear that some trick was about to be played upon him.
"Durn your ugly karkidge!" cried Zeb, angrily venting the words. "Why don't ye stan' still? Who's goin' to hurt ye? Come, ole critter!" he continued coaxingly, "I only want to see how youv'e been shod."
Again he attempted to lift the hoof, but was prevented by the restive behaviour of the horse.
"Wal, this air a difeequilty I didn't expeck," muttered he, glancing round to see how it might be overcome. "What's to be did? It'll never do to hev the nigger help me--nor yet see what I'm abeout--the which he will ef I don't get quick through wi' it. Dog-gone the hoss! How am I to git his feet up?"
For a short while he stood considering, his countenance showing a peevish impatience.
"Cuss the critter!" he again exclaimed. "I feel like knockin' him over whar he stan's. Ha! now I hev it, if the nigger will only gie time. I hope the wench will keep him waitin'. Durn ye! I'll make ye stan' still, or choke ye dead ef ye don't. Wi' this roun' yur jugewlar, I reck'n ye won't be so skittish."
While speaking he had lifted the trail-rope from his own saddle; and, throwing its noose over the head of the sorrel, he shook it down till it encircled the animal's neck.
Then hauling upon the other end, he drew it taut as a bowstring.
The horse for a time kept starting about the stall, and snorting with rage.
But his snorts were soon changed into a hissing sound, that with difficulty escaped through his nostrils; and his wrath resolved itself into terror. The rope tightly compressing his throat was the cause of the change.
Zeb now approached him without fear; and, after making the slip fast, commenced lifting his feet one after the other--scrutinising each, in great haste, but at the same time with sufficient care. He appeared to take note of the shape, the shoeing, the number and relative position of the nails--in short, everything that might suggest an idiosyncrasy, or assist in a future identification.
On coming to the off hind foot--which he did last of the four--an exclamation escaped him that proclaimed some satisfactory surprise. It was caused by the sight of a broken shoe--nearly a quarter of which was missing from the hoof, the fracture having occurred at the second nail from the canker.
"Ef I'd know'd o' you," he muttered in apostrophe to the imperfect shoe, "I mout a' saved myself the trouble o' examinin' the tothers. Thur ain't much chance o' mistakin' the print you'd be likely to leave ahint ye. To make shur, I'll jest take ye along wi me."
In conformity with this resolve, he drew out his huge hunting knife--the blade of which, near the hilt, was a quarter of an inch thick--and, inserting it under the piece of iron, he wrenched it from the hoof.
Taking care to have the nails along, he transferred it to the capacious pocket of his coat.
Then nimbly gliding back to the trail-rope, he undid the knot; and restored the interrupted respiration of the sorrel.
Pluto came in the moment after, bringing a plentiful supply of refreshments--including a tumbler of the Monongahela; and to these Zeb instantly applied himself, without saying a word about the interlude that had occurred during the darkey's absence.
The latter, however, did not fail to perceive that the sorrel was out of sorts: for the animal, on finding itself released, stood shivering in the stall, gazing around in a sort of woe-begone wonder after the rough treatment, to which he had been submitted.
"Gorramity!" exclaimed the black, "what am de matter wif de ole hoss? Ho! ho! he look like he wa afeerd ob you, Mass Tump!"
"Oh, ye-es!" drawled Zeb, with seeming carelessness. "I reck'n he air a bit afeerd. He war makin' to get at my ole maar, so I gied him a larrup or two wi' the eend o' my trail rope. Thet's what has rousted him."
Pluto was perfectly satisfied with the explanation, and the subject was permitted to drop.
"Look hyur, Plute!" said Zeb, starting another. "Who does the shoein' o' yur cattle? Thars some o' the hands air a smith, I reck'n?"
"Ho! ho! Dat dere am. Yella Jake he do shoein'. Fo what you ask, Mass Tump?"
"Wal; I war thinkin' o' havin' a kupple o' shoes put on the hind feet o' the maar. I reck'n Jake ud do it for me."
"Ho! ho! he do it wif a thousan' welkim--dat he will, I'se shoo."
"Questyun is, kin I spare the time to wait. How long do it take him to put on a kupple?"
"Lor, Mass Tamp, berry short while. Jake fust-rate han' lit de bizness. Ebberybody say so."
"He moutn't have the mateerils riddy? It depends on whether he's been shoein' lately. How long's it since he shod any o' yourn?"
"More'n a week I blieb, Mass' Zeb. Ho--ho! Do last war Missa Looey hoss--de beautiful 'potty dar. But dat won't make no differens. I know he hab de fixins all ready. I knows it, kase he go for shoe de sorrel. De ole hoss hab one ob de hind shoe broke. He hab it so de lass ten day; an Mass Cahoon, he gib orders for it be remove. Ho--ho! dis berry mornin' I hear um tell Jake."
"Arter all," rejoined Zeb, as if suddenly changing his mind, "I moutn't hev the time to spare. I reck'n I'll let the ole critter do 'ithout till I kum back. The tramp I'm goin' on--most part o' it--lies over grass purayra; an won't hurt her."
"No, I hevn't time," he added, after stepping outside and glancing up towards the sky. "I must be off from hyur in the shakin' o' a goat's tail. Now, ole gal! you've got to stop yur munchin' an take this bit o' iron atwixt yur teeth. Open yur corn trap for it. That's the putty pet!"
And so continuing to talk--now to Pluto, now to the mare--he once more adjusted the headstall; led the animal out; and, clambering into the saddle, rode thoughtfully away.
Chapter Seventy Two
ZEB STUMP ON THE TRAIL.
After getting clear of the enclosures of Casa del Corvo, the hunter headed his animal up stream--in the direction of the Port and town.
It was the former he intended to reach--which he did in a ride of less than a quarter of an hour.
Commonly it took him three to accomplish this distance; but on this occasion he was in an unusual state of excitement, and he made speed to correspond. The old mare could go fast enough when required--that is when Zeb required her and he had a mode of quickening her speed--known only to himself, and only employed upon extraordinary occasions. It simply consisted in drawing the bowie knife from his belt, and inserting about in inch of its blade into the mare's hip, close to the termination of the spine.
The effect was like magic; or, if you prefer the figure--electricity. So spurred, Zeb's "critter" could accomplish a mile in three minutes; and more than once had she been called upon to show this capability, when her owner was chased by Comanches.
On the present occasion there was no necessity for such excessive speed; and the Fort was reached after fifteen minutes' sharp trotting.
On reaching it, Zeb slipped out of the saddle, and made his way to the quarters of the commandant; while the mare was left panting upon the parade ground.
The old hunter had no difficulty in obtaining an interview with the military chief of Fort Inge. Looked upon by the officers as a sort of privileged character, he had the entree at all times, and could go in without countersign, or any of the other formalities usually demanded from a stranger. The sentry passed him, as a matter of course--the officer of the guard only exchanged with him a word of welcome; and the adjutant at once announced his name to the major commanding the cantonment.
From his first words, the latter appeared to have been expecting him.
"Ah! Mr Stump! Glad to see you so soon. Have you made any discovery in this queer affair? From your quick return, I can almost say you have. Something, I hope, in favour of this unfortunate young fellow. Notwithstanding that appearances are strongly against him, I still adhere to my old opinion--that he's innocent. What have you learnt?"
"Wal, Maje," answered Zeb, without making other obeisance than the simple politeness of removing his hat; "what I've larnt aint much, tho' enough to fetch me back to the Fort; where I didn't intend to come, till I'd gone a bit o' a jurney acrosst the purayras. I kim back hyur to hev a word wi' yurself."
"In welcome. What is it you have to say?"
"That ye'll keep back this trial as long's ye kin raisonably do so. I know thur's a pressyur from the outside; but I know, too, that ye've got the power to resist it, an what's more, Maje--yo've got the will."
"I have. You speak quite truly about that, Mr Stump. And as to the power, I have that, too, in a certain sense. But, as you are aware, in our great republic, the military power must always be subservient to the civil--unless under martial-law, which God forbid should ever be required among us--even here in Texas. I can go so far as to hinder any open violation of the law; but I cannot go against the law itself."
"T'ant the law I want ye to go agin. Nothin' o' the sort, Maje. Only them as air like to take it into thur own hands, an twist it abeout to squar it wi' thur own purpisses. Thur's them in this Settlement as 'ud do thet, ef they ain't rustrained. One in espeecial 'ud like to do it; an I knows who thet one air--leestwise I hev a tolable clur guess o' him."
"Who?"
"Yur good to keep a seecret, Maje? I know ye air."
"Mr Stump, what passes here is in confidence. You may speak your mind freely."
"Then my mind air: thet the man who hez dud this murder ain't Maurice the Mowstanger."
"That's my own belief. You know it already. Have you nothing more to communicate?"
"Wal, Maje, preehaps I ked communerkate a leetle more ef you insist upon it. But the time ain't ripe for tellin' ye what I've larnt--the which, arter all, only mounts to surspishuns. I may be wrong; an I'd rayther you'd let me keep 'em to myself till I hev made a short exkurshun acrost to the Nooeces. Arter thet, ye'll be welkum to what I know now, besides what I may be able to gather off o' the parayras."
"So far as I am concerned, I'm quite contented to wait for your return; the more willingly that I know you are acting on the side of justice. But what would you have me do?"
"Keep back the trial, Maje--only that. The rest will be all right."
"How long? You know that it must come on according to the usual process in the Criminal Court. The judge of this circuit will not be ruled by me, though he may yield a little to my advice. But there is a party, who are crying out for vengeance; and he may be ruled by them."
"I know the party ye speak o'. I know their leader; an maybe, afore the trial air over, he may be the kriminal afore the bar."
"Ah! you do not believe, then, that these Mexicans are the men!"
"Can't tell, Maje, whether they air or ain't. I do b'lieve thet they've hed a hand in the bizness; but I don't b'lieve thet they've been the prime movers in't. It's him I want to diskiver. Kin ye promise me three days?"
"Three days! For what?"
"Afore the trial kims on."
"Oh! I think there will be no difficulty about that. He is now a prisoner under military law. Even if the judge of the Supreme Court should require him to be delivered up inside that time, I can make objections that will delay his being taken from the guard-house. I shall undertake to do that."
"Maje! ye'd make a man a'most contented to live under marshul law. No doubt thur air times when it air the best, tho' we independent citizens don't much like it. All I've got to say air, thet ef ye stop this trial for three days, or tharahout, preehaps the prisoner to kim afore the bar may be someb'y else than him who's now in the guard-house--someb'y who jest at this mom't hain't the smallest serspishun o' bein' hisself surspected. Don't ask me who. Only say ye'll streetch a pint, an gi' me three days?"
"I promise it, Mr Stump. Though I may risk my commission as an officer in the American army, I give you an officer's promise, that for three days Maurice the Mustanger shall not go out of my guard-house. Innocent or guilty, for that time he shall be protected."
"Yur the true grit, Maje; an dog-gone me, ef I don't do my beest to show ye some day, thet I'm sensible o't. I've nuthin' more to say now, 'ceptin' to axe thet ye'll not tell out o' doors what I've been tellin' you. Thur's them outside who, ef they only knew what this coon air arter, 'ud move both heving an airth to circumwent his intenshuns."
"They'll have no help from me--whoever it is you are speaking of. Mr Stump, you may rely upon my pledged word."
"I know't, Maje, I know't. God bless ye for a good 'un. Yer the right sort for Texas!"
With this complimentary leave-taking the hunter strode out of head-quarters, and made his way back to the place where he had left his old mare.
Once more mounting her, he rode rapidly away. Having cleared the parade ground, and afterwards the outskirts of the village, he returned on the same path that had conducted him from Casa Del Corvo.
On reaching the outskirts of Poindexter's plantation, he left the low lands of the Leona bottom, and spurred his old mare 'gainst the steep slope ascending to the upper plain.
He reached it, at a point where the chapparal impinged upon the prairie, and there reined up under the shade of a mezquit tree. He did not alight, nor show any sign of an intention to do so; but sate in the saddle, stooped forward, his eyes turned upon the ground, in that vacant gaze which denotes reflection.
"Dog-gone my cats!" he drawled out in slow soliloquy. "Thet ere sarkimstance are full o' signiferkince. Calhoun's hoss out the same night, an fetched home a' sweetin' all over. What ked that mean? Durn me, ef I don't surspect the foul play hev kum from that quarter. I've thort so all along; only it air so ridiklous to serpose thet he shed a killed his own cousin. He'd do that, or any other villinous thing, ef there war a reezun for it. There ain't--none as I kin think o'. Ef the property hed been a goin' to the young un, then the thing mout a been intellygible enuf. But it want. Ole Peintdexter don't own a acre o' this hyur groun'; nor a nigger thet's upon it. Thet I'm sartin' 'beout. They all belong to that cuss arready; an why shed he want to get shot o' the cousin? Thet's whar this coon gets flummixed in his kalkerlations. Thar want no ill will atween 'em, as ever I heerd o'. Thur's a state o' feelin' twixt him an the gurl, thet he don't like, I know. But why shed it temp him to the killin' o' her brother?
"An' then thur's the mowstanger mixed in wi' it, an that shindy 'beout which she tolt me herself; an the sham Injuns, an the Mexikin shemale wi' the har upon her lip; an the hossman 'ithout a head, an hell knows what beside! Geesus Geehosofat! it 'ud puzzle the brain pan o' a Looeyville lawyer!
"Wal--there's no time to stan' speklatin' hyur. Wi' this bit o' iron to assiss me, I may chance upon somethin' thet'll gie a clue to a part o' the bloody bizness, ef not to the hul o' it; an fust, as to the direcshun in which I shed steer?"
He looked round, as if in search of some one to answer the interrogatory.
"It air no use beginnin' neer the Fort or the town. The groun' abeout both on 'em air paddled wi' hoss tracks like a cattle pen. I'd best strike out into the purayra at onst, an take a track crossways o' the Rio Grande route. By doin' thet I may fluke on the futmark I'm in search o'. Yes--ye-es! thet's the most sensiblest idee."
As if fully satisfied on this score, he took up his bridle-rein, muttered some words to his mare, and commenced moving off along the edge of the chapparal.
Having advanced about a mile in the direction of the Nueces river, he abruptly changed his course; but with a coolness that told of a predetermined purpose.
It was now nearly due west, and at right angles to the different trails going towards the Rio Grande.
There was a simultaneous change in his bearing--in the expression of his features--and his attitude in the saddle. No longer looking listlessly around, he sate stooping forward, his eye carefully scanning the sward, over a wide space on both sides of the path he was pursuing.
He had ridden about a mile in the new direction, when something seen upon the ground caused him to start, and simultaneously pull upon the bridle-rein.
Nothing loth, the "critter" came to a stand; Zeb, at the same time, flinging himself out of the saddle.
Leaving the old mare to ruminate upon this eccentric proceeding, he advanced a pace or two, and dropped down upon his knees.
Then drawing the piece of curved iron out of his capacious pocket, he applied it to a hoof-print conspicuously outlined in the turf. It fitted.
"Fits!" he exclaimed, with a triumphant gesticulation, "Dog-goned if it don't!"
"Tight as the skin o' a tick!" he continued, after adjusting the broken shoe to the imperfect hoof-print, and taking it up again. "By the eturnal! that ere's the track o' a creetur--mayhap a murderer!"
Chapter Seventy Three
THE PRAIRIE ISLAND.
A herd of a hundred horses--or three times the number--pasturing upon a prairie, although a spectacle of the grandest kind furnished by the animal kingdom, is not one that would strike a Texan frontiersman as either strange, or curious. He would think it stranger to see a single horse in the same situation.
The former would simply be followed by the reflection: "A drove of mustangs." The latter conducts to a different train of thought, in which there is an ambiguity. The solitary steed might be one of two things: either an exiled stallion, kicked out of his own cavallada, or a roadster strayed from some encampment of travellers.
The practised eye of the prairie-man would soon decide which.
If the horse browsed with a bit in his mouth, and a saddle on his shoulders, there would be no ambiguity--only the conjecture, as to how he had escaped from his rider.
If the rider were upon his back, and the horse still browsing, there would be no room for conjecture--only the reflection, that the former must be a lazy thick-headed fellow, not to alight and let his animal graze in a more commodious fashion.
If, however, the rider, instead of being suspected of having a thick head, was seen to have no head at all, then would there be cue for a thousand conjectures, not one of which might come within a thousand miles of the truth.
Such a horse; and just such a rider, were seen upon the prairies of South-Western Texas in the year of our Lord 1850 something. I am not certain as to the exact year--the unit of it--though I can with unquestionable certainty record the decade.
I can speak more precisely as to the place; though in this I must be allowed latitude. A circumference of twenty miles will include the different points where the spectral apparition made itself manifest to the eyes of men--both on prairie and in chapparal--in a district of country traversed by several northern tributaries of the Rio de Nueces, and some southern branches of the Rio Leona.
It was seen not only by many people; but at many different times. First, by the searchers for Henry Poindexter and his supposed murderer; second, by the servant of Maurice the mustanger; thirdly, by Cassius Calhoun, on his midnight exploration of the chapparal; fourthly, by the sham Indians on that same night: and, fifthly, by Zeb Stump on the night following.
But there were others who saw it elsewhere and on different occasions-- hunters, herdsmen, and travellers--all alike awed, alike perplexed, by the apparition.
It had become the talk not only of the Leona settlement, but of others more distant. Its fame already reached on one side to the Rio Grande, and on the other was rapidly extending to the Sabine. No one doubted that such a thing had been seen. To have done so would have been to ignore the evidence of two hundred pairs of eyes, all belonging to men willing to make affidavit of the fact--for it could not be pronounced a fancy. No one denied that it had been seen. The only question was, how to account for a spectacle so peculiar, as to give the lie to all the known laws of creation.
At least half a score of theories were started--more or less feasible-- more or less absurd. Some called it an "Indian dodge;" others believed it a "lay figure;" others that it was not that, but a real rider, only so disguised as to have his head under the serape that shrouded his shoulders, with perhaps a pair of eye-holes through which he could see to guide his horse; while not a few pertinaciously adhered to the conjecture, started at a very early period, that the Headless Horseman was Lucifer himself!
In addition to the direct attempts at interpreting the abnormal phenomenon, there was a crowd of indirect conjectures relating to it. Some fancied that they could see the head, or the shape of it, down upon the breast, and under the blanket; others affirmed to having actually seen it carried in the rider's hand; while others went still further, and alleged: that upon the head thus seen there was a hat--a black-glaze sombrero of the Mexican sort, with a band of gold bullion above the brim!
There were still further speculations, that related less to the apparition itself than to its connection with the other grand topic of the time--the murder of young Poindexter.
Most people believed there was some connection between the two mysteries; though no one could explain it. He, whom everybody believed, could have thrown some light upon the subject, was still ridden by the night-mare of delirium.
And for a whole week the guessing continued; during which the spectral rider was repeatedly seen; now going at a quick gallop, now moving in slow, tranquil pace, across the treeless prairie: his horse at one time halted and vaguely gazing around him; at another with teeth to the ground, industriously cropping the sweet gramma grass, that makes the pasturage of South-Western Texas (in my opinion) the finest in the world.
Rejecting many tales told of the Headless Horseman--most of them too grotesque to be recorded--one truthful episode must needs be given-- since it forms an essential chapter of this strange history.
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In the midst of the open, prairie there is a "motte"--a coppice, or clump of trees--of perhaps three or four acres in superficial extent. A prairie-man would call it an "island," and with your eyes upon the vast verdant sea that surrounds it, you could not help being struck with the resemblance.
The aboriginal of America might not perceive it. It is a thought of the colonist transmitted to his descendants; who, although they may never have looked upon the great ocean, are nevertheless au fait to its phraseology.
By the timber island in question--about two hundred yards from its edge--a horse is quietly pasturing. He is the same that carries the headless rider; and this weird equestrian is still bestriding him, with but little appearance of change, either in apparel or attitude, since first seen by the searchers. The striped blanket still hangs over his shoulders, cloaking the upper half of his person; while the armas-de-agua, strapped over his limbs, cover them from thigh to spur, concealing all but their outlines.
His body is bent a little forward, as if to ease the horse in getting his snout to the sward; which the long bridle-rein, surrendered to its full length, enables him to do, though still retained in hand, or resting over the "horn" of the saddle.
Those who asserted that they saw a head, only told the truth. There is a head; and, as also stated, with a hat upon it--a black sombrero, with bullion band as described.
The head rests against the left thigh, the chin being nearly down on a level with the rider's knee. Being on the near side it can only be seen, when the spectator is on the same; and not always then, as it is at times concealed by a corner of the serape.
At times too can a glimpse be obtained of the face. Its features are well formed, but wearing a sad expression; the lips of livid colour, slightly parted, showing a double row of white teeth, set in a grim ghastly smile.
Though there is no perceptible change in the personnel of the Headless Horseman there is something new to be noted. Hitherto he has been seen going alone. Now he is in company.
It cannot be called agreeable;--consisting as it does of wolves--half a score of them squatting closely upon the plain, and at intervals loping around him.
By the horse they are certainly not liked; as is proved by the snorting and stamping of his hoof, when one of them ventures upon a too close proximity to his heels.
The rider seems more indifferent to a score of birds--large dark birds-- that swoop in shadowy circles around his shoulders. Even when one bolder than the rest has the audacity to alight upon him, he has made no attempt to disturb it, raising neither hand nor arm to drive it away!
Three times one of the birds has alighted thus--first upon the right shoulder, then upon the left, and then midway between--upon the spot where the head should be!
The bird does not stay upon its singular perch, or only for an instant. If the rider does not feel the indignity the steed does; and resists it by rearing upward, with a fierce neighing, that frights the vultures off--to return again only after a short interval of shyness.
His steed thus browsing, now in quiet, now disturbed by the too near approach of the wolves--anon by the bold behaviour of the birds--goes the Headless Horseman, step by step, and with long pauses of pasturing, around the prairie island.
Chapter Seventy Four
A SOLITARY STALKER.
The singular spectacle described--extraordinary it might be termed--was too grave to appear grotesque. There was some thing about it that savoured of the outre-monde. Human eyes could not have beholden it, without the shivering of a human frame, and the chilling of human blood.
Was it seen by human eyes in this fresh phase--with the wolves below, and the vultures above?
It was.
By one pair; and they belonging to the only man in all Texas who had arrived at something like a comprehension of the all-perplexing mystery.
It was not yet altogether clear to him. There were points that still puzzled him. He but know it was neither a dummy, nor the Devil.
His knowledge did not except him from the universal feeling of dread. Despite the understanding of what the thing was, he shuddered as he gazed upon it.
He gazed upon it from the "shore" of the prairie-island; himself unseen under its shadows, and apparently endeavouring to remain so.
And yet, with all his trembling and the desire to keep concealed, he was following it round and round, on the circumference of an inner circle, as if some magnetic power was constraining him to keep on the same radius, of which the point occupied by the Headless Horseman was a prolongation!
More than this. He had seen the latter before entering the island. He had seen him far off, and might easily have shunned him. But instead of doing so, he had immediately commenced making approach towards him!
He had continued it--using the timber as a screen, and acting as one who stalks the timid stag, with the difference of a heart-dread which no deer-stalker could ever know.
He had continued it; until the shelter of the motte gave him a momentary respite, not from fear, but the apprehension of a failure.
He had not ridden ten miles across the prairie without a design; and it was this that caused him to go so cautiously--guiding his horse over the softest turf, and through the selvedge of the chapparal--in such a way as neither to expose his person to view, nor cause a rustle among the branches, that might be heard to the distance of ten yards.
No one observing his manoeuvres as he moved amid the timber island, could have mistaken their meaning--at least so far as related to the object for which they were being made.
His eye was upon the Headless Horseman, his whole soul absorbed in watching the movements of the latter--by which he appeared to regulate his own.
At first, fear seemed to be his prevailing thought. After a time, it was succeeded by an impatience that partially emboldened him. The latter plainly sprang from his perceiving, that the Headless Horseman, instead of approaching the timber, still kept at a regular distance of two hundred yards from its edge.
That this chafed him was evident from a string of soliloquies, muttered half aloud. They were not free from blasphemy; but that was characteristic of the man who pronounced them.
"Damn the infernal brute! If he'd only come twenty yards nearer, I could fetch him. My gun won't carry that distance. I'd miss him for sure, and then it'll be all up. I may never get the chance again. Confound him! He's all of twenty yards too far off." As if the last was an ambiguity rather than a conviction, the speaker appeared to measure with his eye the space that separated him from the headless rider--all the while holding in hand a short Yager rifle, capped and cocked--ready for instant discharge.
"No use," he continued, after a process of silent computation. "I might hit the beast with a spent ball, but only to scare without crippling him. I must have patience, and wait till he gets a little nearer. Damn them wolves! He might come in, if it wasn't for them. So long as they're about him, he'll give the timber a wide berth. It's the nature of these Texas howes--devil skin them!
"I wonder if coaxing would do any good?" he proceeded, after a pause. "Maybe the sound of a man's voice would bring the animal to a stand? Doubtful. He's not likely to 've heard much of that lately. I suppose it would only frighten him! The sight of my horse would be sure to do it, as it did before; though that was in the moonlight. Besides, he was chased by the howling staghound. No wonder his being wild, then, ridden as he is by hell knows what; for it can't be--Bah! After all, there must be some trick in it; some damned infernal trick!"
For a while the speaker checked his horse with a tight rein. And, leaning forward, so as to get a good view through the trees, continued to scan the strange shape that was slowly skirting the timber.
"It's his horse--sure as shootin'! His saddle, serape, and all. How the hell could they have come into the possession of the other?"
Another pause of reflection.
"Trick, or no trick, it's an ugly business. Whoever's planned it, must know all that happened that night; and by God, if that thing lodged there, I've got to get it back. What a fool; to have bragged about it as I did! Curse the crooked luck!
"He won't come nearer. He's provokingly shy of the timber. Like all his breed, he knows he's safest in the open ground.
"What's to be done? See if I can call him up. May be he may like to hear a human voice. If it'll only fetch him twenty yards nearer, I'll be satisfied. Hanged if I don't try."
Drawing a little closer to the edge of the thicket, the speaker pronounced that call usually employed by Texans to summon a straying horse.
"Proh--proh--proshow! Come kindly! come, old horse!"
The invitation was extended to no purpose. The Texan steed did not seem to understand it; at all events, as an invitation to friendly companionship. On the contrary, it had the effect of frightening him; for no sooner fell the "proh" upon his ear, than letting go the mouthful of grass already gathered, he tossed his head aloft with a snort that proclaimed far greater fear than that felt for either wolf or vulture!
A mustang, he knew that his greatest enemy was man--a man mounted upon a horse; and by this time his scent had disclosed to him the proximity of such a foe.
He stayed not to see what sort of man, or what kind of horse. His first instinct had told him that both were enemies.
As his rider by this time appeared to have arrived at the same conclusion, there was no tightening of the rein; and he was left free to follow his own course--which carried him straight off over the prairie.
A bitter curse escaped from the lips of the unsuccessful stalker as he spurred out into the open ground.
Still more bitter was his oath, as he beheld the Headless Horseman passing rapidly beyond reach--unscathed by the bullet he had sent to earnestly after him.
Chapter Seventy Five
ON THE TRAIL.
Zeb Stump stayed but a short while on the spot, where he had discovered the hoof-print with the broken shoe.
Six seconds sufficed for its identification; after which he rose to his feet, and continued along the trail of the horse that had made it.
He did not re-mount, but strode forward on foot; the old mare, obedient to a signal he had given her, keeping at a respectful distance behind him.
For more than a mile he moved on in this original fashion--now slowly, as the trail became indistinct--quickening his pace where the print of the imperfect shoe could be seen without difficulty.
Like an archaeologist engaged upon a tablet of hieroglyphic history, long entombed beneath the ruins of a lost metropolis--whose characters appear grotesque to all except himself--so was it with Zeb Stump, as he strode on, translating the "sign" of the prairie.
Absorbed in the act, and the conjectures that accompanied it, he had no eyes for aught else. He glanced neither to the green savannah that stretched inimitably around, nor to the blue sky that spread specklessly above him. Alone to the turf beneath his feet was his eye and attention directed.
A sound--not a sight--startled him from his all-engrossing occupation. It was the report of a rifle; but so distant, as to appear but the detonation of a percussion-cap that had missed fire.
Instinctively he stopped; at the same time raising his eyes, but without unbending his body.
With a quick glance the horizon was swept, along the half dozen points whence the sound should have proceeded.
A spot of bluish smoke--still preserving its balloon shape--was slowly rolling up against the sky. A dark blotch beneath indicated the outlines of an "island" of timber.
So distant was the "motte," the smoke, and the sound, that only the eye of an experienced prairie-man would have seen the first, or his ear heard the last, from the spot where Zeb Stump was standing.
But Zeb saw the one, and heard the other.
"Durned queery!" he muttered, still stooped in the attitude of a gardener dibbing in his young cabbage-plants.
"Dog-goned queery, to say the leest on't. Who in ole Nick's name kin be huntin' out thur--whar theer ain't game enuf to pay for the powder an shet? I've been to thet ere purayra island; an I know there ain't nothin' thur 'ceptin' coyoats. What they get to live on, only the Eturnal kin tell!"
"Wagh!" he went on, after a short silence. "Some storekeeper from the town, out on a exkurshun, as he'd call it, who's proud o' poppin' away at them stinkin' varmints, an 'll go hum wi' a story he's been a huntin' wolves! Wal. 'Tain't no bizness o' myen. Let yurd-stick hev his belly-ful o' sport. Heigh! thur's somethin' comin' this way. A hoss an somebody on his back--streakin' it as if hell war arter him, wi' a pitchfork o' red-het lightnin'! What! As I live, it air the Headless! It is, by the jumpin' Geehosophat!"
The observation of the old hunter was quite correct. There could be no mistake about the character of the cavalier, who, just clearing himself from the cloud of sulphureous smoke--now falling, dispersed over the prairie--came galloping on towards the spot where Zeb stood. It was the horseman without a head.
Nor could there be any doubt as to the direction he was taking--as straight towards Zeb as if he already saw, and was determined on coming up with him!
A braver man than the backwoodsman could not have been found within the confines of Texas. Cougar, or jaguar--bear, buffalo, or Red Indian--he could have encountered without quailing. Even a troop of Comanches might have come charging on, without causing him half the apprehension felt at sight of that solitary equestrian.
With all his experience of Nature in her most secret haunts--despite the stoicism derived from that experience--Zeb Stump was not altogether free from superstitious fancies. Who is?
With the courage to scorn a human foe--any enemy that might show itself in a natural shape, either of biped or quadruped--still was he not stern enough to defy the abnormal; and Bayard himself would have quailed at sight of the cavalier who was advancing to the encounter--apparently determined upon its being deadly!
Zeb Stump not only quailed; but, trembling in his tall boots of alligator leather, sought concealment.
He did so, long before the Headless Horseman had got within hailing distance; or, as he supposed, within sight of him.
Some bushes growing close by gave him the chance of a hiding place; of which, with instinctive quickness, he availed himself.
The mare, standing saddled by his side, might still have betrayed him?
But, no. He had not gone to his knees, without thinking of that.
"Hunker down!" he cried, addressing himself to his dumb companion, who, if wanting speech, proved herself perfect in understanding. "Squat, ye ole critter; or by the Eturnal ye'll be switched off into hell!"
As if dreading some such terrible catastrophe, the scraggy quadruped dropped down upon her fore knees; and then, lowering her hind quarters, laid herself along the grass, as though thinking her day's work done-- she was free to indulge in a fiesta.
Scarce had Zeb and his roadster composed themselves their new position, when the Headless Horseman came charging up.
He was going at full speed; and Zeb was but too well pleased to perceive that he was likely to continue it.
It was sheer chance that had conducted him that way; and not from having seen either the hunter or his sorry steed.
The former--if not the latter--was satisfied at being treated in that cavalier style; but, long before the Headless Horseman had passed out of sight, Zeb had taken his dimensions, and made himself acquainted with his character.
Though he might be a mystery to all the world beside, he was no longer so to Zebulon Stump.
As the horse shot past in fleet career, the skirt of the serape, flouted up by the wind, displayed to Stump's optics a form well known to him--in a dress he had seen before. It was a blouse of blue cottonade, box-plaited over the breast; and though its vivid colour was dashed with spots of garish red, the hunter was able to recognise it.
He was not so sure about the face seen low down upon the saddle, and resting against the rider's leg.
There was nothing strange in his inability to recognise it.
The mother, who had oft looked fondly on that once fair countenance, would not have recognised it now.
Zeb Stump only did so by deduction. The horse, the saddle, the holsters, the striped blanket, the sky-blue coat and trousers--even the hat upon the head--were all known to him. So, too, was the figure that stood almost upright in the stirrups. The head and face must belong to the same--notwithstanding their unaccountable displacement.
Zeb saw it by no uncertain glance. He was permitted a full, fair view of the ghastly spectacle.
The steed, though going at a gallop, passed within ten paces of him.
He made no attempt to interrupt the retreating rider--either by word or gesture. Only, as the form became unmasked before his eyes, and its real meaning flashed across his mind, he muttered, in a slow, sad tone:
"Gee-hos-o-phat! It air true, then! Poor young fellur--dead--dead!"
Chapter Seventy Six
LOST IN THE CHALK.
Still continuing his fleet career, the Headless Horseman galloped on over the prairie--Zeb Stump following only with his eyes; and not until he had passed out of sight, behind some straggling groves of mezquite, did the backwoodsman abandon his kneeling position.
Then only for a second or two did he stand erect--taking council with himself as to what course he should pursue.
The episode--strange as unexpected--had caused some disarrangement in his ideas, and seemed to call for a change in his plans. Should he continue along the trail he was already deciphering; or forsake it for that of the steed that had just swept by?
By keeping to the former, he might find out much; but by changing to the latter he might learn more?
He might capture the Headless Horseman, and ascertain from him the why and wherefore of his wild wanderings?
While thus absorbed, in considering what course he had best take, he had forgotten the puff of smoke, and the report heard far off over the prairie.
Only for a moment, however. They were things to be remembered; and he soon remembered them.
Turning his eyes to the quarter where the smoke had appeared, he saw that which caused him to squat down again; and place himself, with more impressement than ever, under cover of the mezquites. The old mare, relishing the recumbent attitude, had still kept to it; and there was no necessity for re-disposing of her.
What Zeb now saw was a man on horseback--a real horseman, with a head upon his shoulders.
He was still a long way off; and it was not likely he had seen the tall form of the hunter, standing shored up among the bushes--much less the mare, lying beneath them. He showed no signs of having done so.
On the contrary, he was sitting stooped in the saddle, his breast bent down to the pommel, and his eyes actively engaged in reading the ground, over which he was guiding his horse.
There could be no difficulty in ascertaining his occupation. Zeb Stump guessed it at a glance. He was tracking the headless rider.
"Ho, ho!" muttered Zeb, on making this discovery; "I ain't the only one who's got a reezun for solvin' this hyur myst'ry! Who the hell kin he be? I shed jest like to know that."
Zeb had not long to wait for the gratification of his wish. As the trail was fresh, the strange horseman could take it up at a trot--in which pace he was approaching.
He was soon within identifying distance.
"Gee--hosophat!" muttered the backwoodsman; "I mout a know'd it wud be him; an ef I'm not mistook about it, hyurs goin' to be a other chapter out o' the same book--a other link as 'll help me to kumplete the chain o' evydince I'm in sarch for. Lay clost, ye critter! Ef ye make ere a stir--even to the shakin' o' them long lugs o' yourn--I'll cut yur darned throat."
The last speech was an apostrophe to the "maar"--after which Zeb waxed silent, with his head among the spray of the acacias, and his eyes peering through the branches in acute scrutiny of him who was coming along.
This was a man, who, once seen, was not likely to be soon forgotten. Scarce thirty years old, he showed a countenance, scathed, less with care than the play of evil passions.
But there was care upon it now--a care that seemed to speak of apprehension--keen, prolonged, yet looking forward with a hope of being relieved from it.
Withal it was a handsome face: such as a gentleman need not have been ashamed of, but for that sinister expression that told of its belonging to a blackguard.
The dress--but why need we describe it? The blue cloth frock of semi-military cut--the forage cap--the belt sustaining a bowie-knife, with a brace of revolving pistols--all have been mentioned before as enveloping and equipping the person of Captain Cassius Calhoun.
It was he.
It was not the batterie of small arms that kept Zeb Stump from showing himself. He had no dread of an encounter with the ex-officer of Volunteers. Though he instinctively felt hostility, he had as yet given no reason to the latter for regarding him as an enemy. He remained in shadow, to have a better view of what was passing under the sunlight.
Still closely scrutinising the trail of the Headless Horseman, Calhoun trotted past.
Still closely keeping among the acacias, Zeb Stump looked after, till the same grove, that had concealed the former, interposed its verdant veil between him and the ex-captain of cavalry.
The backwoodsman's brain having become the recipient of new thoughts, required a fresh exercise of its ingenuity.
If there was reason before for taking the trail of the Headless Horseman, it was redoubled now.
With but short time spent in consideration, so Zeb concluded; and commenced making preparations for a stalk after Cassius Calhoun.
These consisted in taking hold of the bridle, and giving the old mare a kick; that caused her to start instantaneously to her feet.
Zeb stood by her side, intending to climb into the saddle and ride out into the open plain--as soon as Calhoun should be out of sight.
He had no thoughts of keeping the latter in view. He needed no such guidance. The two fresh trails would be sufficient for him; and he felt as sure of finding the direction in which both would lead, as if he had ridden alongside the horseman without a head, or him without a heart.
With this confidence he cleared out from among the acacias, and took the path just trodden by Calhoun.
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For once in his life, Zeb Stump had made a mistake. On rounding the mezquite grove, behind which both had made disappearance, he discovered he had done so.
Beyond, extended a tract of chalk prairie; over which one of the horsemen appeared to have passed--him without the head.
Zeb guessed so, by seeing the other, at some distance before him, riding to and fro, in transverse stretches, like a pointer quartering the stubble in search of a partridge.
He too had lost the trail, and was endeavouring to recover it.
Crouching under cover of the mezquites, the hunter remained a silent spectator of his movements.
The attempt terminated in a failure. The chalk surface defied interpretation--at least by skill such as that of Cassius Calhoun.
After repeated quarterings he appeared to surrender his design; and, angrily plying the spur, galloped off in the direction of the Leona.
As soon as he was out of sight, Zeb also made an effort to take up the lost trail. But despite his superior attainments in the tracking craft, he was compelled to relinquish it.
A fervid sun was glaring down upon the chalk; and only the eye of a salamander could have withstood the reflection of its rays.
Dazed almost to blindness, the backwoodsman determined upon turning late back; and once more devoting his attention to the trail from which he had been for a time seduced.
He had learnt enough to know that this last promised a rich reward for its exploration.
It took him but a short time to regain it.
Nor did he lose any in following it up. He was too keenly impressed with its value; and with this idea urging him, he strode rapidly on, the mare following as before.
Once only did he make pause; at a point where the tracks of two horses converged with that he was following.
From this point the three coincided--at times parting and running parallel, for a score of yards or so, but again coming together and overlapping one another.
The horses were all shod--like that which carried the broken shoe--and the hunter only stopped to see what he could make out of the hoof marks. One was a "States horse;" the other a mustang--though a stallion of great size, and with a hoof almost as large as that of the American.
Zeb had his conjectures about both.
He did not stay to inquire which had gone first over the ground. That was as clear to him, as if he had been a spectator at their passing. The stallion had been in the lead,--how far Zeb could not exactly tell; but certainly some distance beyond that of companionship. The States horse had followed; and behind him, the roadster with the broken shoe-- also an American.
All three had gone over the same ground, at separate times, and each by himself. This Zeb Stump could tell with as much ease and certainty, as one might read the index of a dial, or thermometer.
Whatever may have been in his thoughts, he said nothing, beyond giving utterance to the simple exclamation "Good!" and, with satisfaction stamped upon his features, he moved on, the old mare appearing to mock him by an imitative stride!
"Hyur they've seppurated," he said, once again coming to a stop, and regarding the ground at his feet. "The stellyun an States hoss hev goed thegither--thet air they've tuk the same way. Broken-shoe hev strayed in a diffrent direkshun."
"Wonder now what thet's for?" he continued, after standing awhile to consider. "Durn me ef I iver seed sech perplexin' sign! It ud puzzle ole Dan'l Boone hisself."
"Which on 'em shed I foller fust? Ef I go arter the two I know whar they'll lead. They're boun' to kim up in thet puddle o' blood. Let's track up tother, and see whether he hev rud into the same procksimmuty! To the right abeout, ole gal, and keep clost ahint me--else ye may get lost in the chapparal, an the coyoats may make thur supper on yur tallow. Ho! ho! ho!"
With this apostrophe to his "critter," ending in a laugh at the conceit of her "tallow," the hunter turned off on the track of the third horse.
It led him along the edge of an extended tract of chapparal; which, following all three, he had approached at a point well known to him, as to the reader,--where it was parted by the open space already described.
The new trail skirted the timber only for a short distance. Two hundred yards from the embouchure of the avenue, it ran into it; and fifty paces further on Zeb came to a spot where the horse had stood tied to a tree.
Zeb saw that the animal had proceeded no further: for there was another set of tracks showing where it had returned to the prairie--though not by the same path.
The rider had gone beyond. The foot-marks of a man could be seen beyond--in the mud of a half-dry arroyo--beside which the horse had been "hitched."
Leaving his critter to occupy the "stall" where broken-shoe had for some time fretted himself, the old hunter glided off upon the footmarks of the dismounted rider.
He soon discovered two sets of them--one going--another coming back.
He followed the former.
He was not surprised at their bringing him out into the avenue--close to the pool of blood--by the coyotes long since licked dry.
He might have traced them right up to it, but for the hundreds of horse tracks that had trodden the ground like a sheep-pen.
But before going so far, he was stayed by the discovery of some fresh "sign"--too interesting to be carelessly examined. In a place where the underwood grew thick, he came upon a spot where a man had remained for some time. There was no turf, and the loose mould was baked hard and smooth, evidently by the sole of a boot or shoe.
There were prints of the same sole leading out towards the place of blood, and similar ones coming back again. But upon the branches of a tree between, Zeb Stump saw something that had escaped the eyes not only of the searchers, but of their guide Spangler--a scrap of paper, blackened and half-burnt--evidently the wadding of a discharged gun!
It was clinging to the twig of a locust-tree, impaled upon one of its spines!
The old hunter took it from the thorn to which, through rain and wind, it had adhered; spread it carefully across the palm of his horny hand; and read upon its smouched surface a name well known to him; which, with its concomitant title, bore the initials, "C.C.C."
Chapter Seventy Seven
ANOTHER LINK.
It was less surprise, than gratification, that showed itself on the countenance of Zeb Stump, as he deciphered the writing on the paper.
"That ere's the backin' o' a letter," muttered he. "Tells a goodish grist o' story; more'n war wrote inside, I reck'n. Been used for the wad' o' a gun! Wal; sarves the cuss right, for rammin' down a rifle ball wi' a patchin' o' scurvy paper, i'stead o' the proper an bessest thing, which air a bit o' greased buckskin."
"The writin' air in a sheemale hand," he continued, looking anew at the piece of paper. "Don't signerfy for thet. It's been sent to him all the same; an he's hed it in purzeshun. It air somethin' to be tuk care o'."
So saying, he drew out a small skin wallet, which contained his tinder of "punk," along with his flint and steel; and, after carefully stowing away the scrap of paper, he returned the sack to his pocket.
"Wal!" he went on in soliloquy, as he stood silently considering, "I kalkerlate as how this ole coon 'll be able to unwind a good grist o' this clue o' mystery, tho' thur be a bit o' the thread broken hyur an thur, an a bit o' a puzzle I can't clurly understan'. The man who hev been murdered, whosomdiver he may be, war out thur by thet puddle o' blood, an the man as did the deed, whosomdiver he be, war a stannin' behint this locust-tree. But for them greenhorns, I mout a got more out o' the sign. Now thur ain't the ghost o' a chance. They've tramped the hul place into a durnationed mess, cuvortin' and caperin' abeout.
"Wal, 'tair no use goin' furrer thet way. The bessest thing now air to take the back track, if it air possable, an diskiver whar the hoss wi' the broke shoe toted his rider arter he went back from this leetle bit o' still-huntin'. Thurfor, ole Zeb'lon Stump, back ye go on the boot tracks!"
With this grotesque apostrophe to himself, he commenced retracing the footmarks that had guided him to the edge of the opening. Only in one or two places were the footprints at all distinct. But Zeb scarce cared for their guidance.
Having already noted that the man who made them had returned to the place where the horse had been left, he knew the back track would lead him there.
There was one place, however, where the two trails did not go over the same ground. There was a forking in the open list, through which the supposed murderer had made his way. It was caused by an obstruction,--a patch of impenetrable thicket. They met again, but not till that on which the hunter was returning straggled off into an open glade of considerable size.
Having become satisfied of this, Zeb looked around into the glade--for a time forsaking the footsteps of the pedestrian.
After a short examination, he observed a trail altogether distinct, and of a different character. It was a well-marked path entering the opening on one side, and going out on the other: in short, a cattle-track.
Zeb saw that several shod horses had passed along it, some days before: and it was this that caused him to come back and examine it.
He could tell to a day--to an hour--when the horses had passed; and from the sign itself. But the exercise of his ingenuity was not needed on this occasion. He knew that the hoof-prints were those of the horses ridden by Spangler and his party--after being detached from the main body of searchers who had gone home with the major.
He had heard the whole story of that collateral investigation--how Spangler and his comrades had traced Henry Poindexter's horse to the place where the negro had caught it--on the outskirts of the plantation.
To an ordinary intellect this might have appeared satisfactory. Nothing more could be learnt by any one going over the ground again.
Zeb Stump did not seem to think so. As he stood looking along it, his attitude showed indecision.
"If I ked make shur o' havin' time," he muttered, "I'd foller it fust. Jest as like as not I'll find a fluke thur too. But thur's no sartinty 'beout the time, an I'd better purceed to settle wi' the anymal as cast the quarter shoe."
He had turned to go out of the glade, when a thought once more stayed him.
"Arter all, it kin be eezy foun' at any time. I kin guess whar it'll lead, as sartint, as if I'd rud 'longside the skunk thet made it-- straight custrut to the stable o' Caser Corver.
"It's a durned pity to drop this un,--now whiles I'm hyur upon the spot. It'll gie me the makin' o' another ten-mile jurney, an thur moutn't be time. Dog-goned ef I don't try a leetle way along it. The ole maar kin wait till I kum back."
Bracing himself for a new investigation, he started off upon the cattle-track, trodden by the horses of Spangler and his party.
To the hoof-marks of these he paid but slight attention; at times, none whatever. His eye only sought those of Henry Poindexter's horse. Though the others were of an after time, and often destroyed the traces he was most anxious to examine, he had no difficulty in identifying the latter. As he would have himself said, any greenhorn could do that. The young planter's horse had gone over the ground at a gallop. The trackers had ridden slowly.
As far as Zeb Stump could perceive, the latter had made neither halt nor deviation. The former had.
It was about three-quarters of a mile from the edge of the venue.
It was not a halt the galloping horse had made, but only a slight departure from his direct course; as if something he had seen--wolf, jaguar, cougar, or other beast of prey--had caused him to shy.
Beyond he had continued his career; rapid and reckless as ever.
Beyond the party along with Spangler had proceeded--without staying to inquire why the horse had shied from his track.
Zeb Stump was more inquisitive, and paused upon this spot.
It was a sterile tract, without herbage, and covered with shingle and sand. A huge tree overshadowed it, with limbs extending horizontally. One of these ran transversely to the path over which the horses had passed--so low that a horseman, to shun contact with it, would have to lower his head. At this branch Zeb Stump stood gazing. He observed an abrasion upon the bark; that, though very slight, must have been caused by contact with some substance, as hard, if not sounder, than itself.
"Thet's been done by the skull o' a human critter," reasoned he--"a human critter, that must a been on the back o' a hoss--this side the branch, an off on the t'other. No livin' man ked a stud sech a cullizyun as thet, an kep his seat i' the seddle.
"Hooraw!" he triumphantly exclaimed, after a cursory examination of the ground underneath the tree. "I thort so. Thur's the impreshun o' the throwed rider. An' thur's whar he hez creeped away. Now I've got a explication o' thet big bump as hez been puzzlin' me. I know'd it wan't did by the claws o' any varmint; an it didn't look like the blow eyther o' a stone or a stick. Thet ere's the stick that hez gi'n it."
With an elastic step--his countenance radiant of triumph--the old hunter strode away from the tree, no longer upon the cattle path, but that taken by the man who had been so violently dismounted.
To one unaccustomed to the chapparal, he might have appeared going without a guide, and upon a path never before pressed by human foot.
A portion of it perhaps had not. But Zeb was conducted by signs which, although obscure to the ordinary eye, were to him intelligible as the painted lettering upon a finger-post. The branch contorted to afford passage for a human form--the displaced tendrils of a creeping plant-- the scratched surface of the earth--all told that a man had passed that way. The sign signified more--that the man was disabled--had been crawling--a cripple!
Zeb Stump continued on, till he had traced this cripple to the banks of a running stream.
It was not necessary for him to go further. He had made one more splice of the broken thread. Another, and his clue would be complete!
Chapter Seventy Eight
A HORSE-SWOP.
With an oath, a sullen look, and a brow black as disappointment could make it, Calhoun turned away from the edge of the chalk prairie, where he had lost the traces of the Headless Horseman.
"No use following further! No knowing where he's gone now! No hope of finding him except by a fluke! If I go back to the creek I might see him again; but unless I get within range, it'll end as it's done before. The mustang stallion won't let me come near him--as if the brute knows what I'm wanting!
"He's even cunninger than the wild sort--trained to it, I suppose, by the mustanger himself. One fair shot--if I could only get that, I'd settle his courses.
"There appears no chance of stealing upon him; and as to riding him down, it can't be done with a slow mule like this.
"The sorrel's not much better as to speed, though he beats this brute in bottom. I'll try him to-morrow, with the new shoe.
"If I could only get hold of something that's fast enough to overtake the mustang! I'd put down handsomely for a horse that could do it.
"There must be one of the sort in the settlement. I'll see when I get back. If there be, a couple of hundred, ay or three, won't hinder me from having him."
After he had made these mutterings Calhoun rode away from the chalk prairie, his dark countenance strangely contrasting with its snowy sheen. He went at a rapid rate; not sparing his horse, already jaded with a protracted journey--as could be told by his sweating coat, and the clots of half-coagulated blood, where the spur had been freely plied upon his flanks. Fresh drops soon appeared as he cantered somewhat heavily on--his head set for the hacienda of Casa del Corvo.
In less than an hour after, his rider was guiding him among the mezquites that skirted the plantation.
It was a path known to Calhoun. He had ridden over it before, though not upon the same horse. On crossing the bed of an arroyo--dry from a long continuance of drought--he was startled at beholding in the mud the tracks of another horse. One of them showed a broken shoe, an old hoof-print, nearly eight days old. He made no examination to ascertain the time. He knew it to an hour.
He bent over it, with a different thought--a feeling of surprise commingled with a touch of superstition. The track looked recent, as if made on the day before. There had been wind, rain, thunder, and lightning. Not one of these had wasted it. Even the angry elements appeared to have passed over without destroying it--as if to spare it for a testimony against the outraged laws of Nature--their God.
Calhoun dismounted, with the design to obliterate the track of the three-quarter shoe. Better for him to have spared himself the pains. The crease of his boot-heel crushing in the stiff mud was only an additional evidence as to who had ridden the broken-shoed horse. There was one coming close behind capable of collecting it.
Once more in his saddle, the ex-officer rode on--reflecting on his own astuteness.
His reflections had scarce reached the point of reverie, when the hoof-stroke of a horse--not his own--came suddenly within hearing. Not within sight: for the animal making them was still screened by the chapparal.
Plainly was it approaching; and, although at a slow pace, the measured tread told of its being guided, and not straying. It was a horse with a rider upon his back.
In another instant both were in view; and Calhoun saw before him Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos; she at the same instant catching sight of him!
It was a strange circumstance that these two should thus encounter one another--apparently by chance, though perhaps controlled by destiny. Stranger still the thought summoned up in the bosoms of both.
In Calhoun, Isidora saw the man who loved the woman she herself hated. In Isidora, Calhoun saw the woman who loved him he both hated and had determined to destroy.
This mutual knowledge they had derived partly from report, partly from observation, and partly from the suspicious circumstances under which more than once they had met. They were equally convinced of its truth. Each felt certain of the sinister entanglement of the other; while both believed their own to be unsuspected.
The situation was not calculated to create a friendly feeling between them. It is not natural that man, or woman, should like the admirer of a rival. They can only be friends at that point where jealousy prompts to the deadliest vengeance; and then it is but a sinister sympathy.
As yet no such had arisen between Cassius Calhoun and Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos.
If it had been possible, both might have been willing to avoid the encounter. Isidora certainly was.
She had no predilection for the ex-officer of dragoons; and besides the knowledge that he was the lover of her rival, there was another thought that now rendered his presence, if not disagreeable, at least not desirable.
She remembered the chase of the sham Indians, and its ending. She knew that among the Texans there had been much conjecture as to her abrupt disappearance, after appealing to them for protection.
She had her own motive for that, which she did not intend to declare; and the man about meeting her might be inclined to ask questions on the subject.
She would have passed with a simple salutation--she could not give less than that. And perhaps he might have done the same; but for a thought which at that moment came into his mind, entirely unconnected with the reflections already there engendered.
It was not the lady herself who suggested the thought. Despite her splendid beauty, he had no admiration for her. In his breast, ruthless as it might have been, there was no space left for a second passion--not even a sensual one--for her thus encountered in the solitude of the chapparal, with Nature whispering wild, wicked suggestions.
It was no idea of this that caused him to rein up in the middle of the path; remove the cap from his crown; and, by a courtly salutation, invite a dialogue with Isidora.
So challenged, she could not avoid the conversation; that commenced upon the instant--Calhoun taking the initiative.
"Excuse me, senorita," said he, his glance directed more upon her steed than herself; "I know it's very rude thus to interrupt your ride; especially on the part of a stranger, as with sorrow I am compelled to call myself."
"It needs no apology, senor. If I'm not mistaken, we have met before-- upon the prairie, out near the Nueces."
"True--true!" stammered Calhoun, not caring to dwell upon the remembrance. "It was not of that encounter I wished to speak; but what I saw afterwards, as you came galloping along the cliff. We all wondered what became of you."
"There was not much cause for wonder, cavallero. The shot which some of your people fired from below, disembarrassed me of my pursuers. I saw that they had turned back, and simply continued my journey."
Calhoun exhibited no chagrin at being thus baffled. The theme upon which he designed to direct his discourse had not yet turned up; and in it he might be more successful.
What it was might have been divined from his glance--half connoisseur, half horse-jockey--still directed toward the steed of Isidora.
"I do not say, senorita, that I was one of those who wondered at your sudden disappearance. I presumed you had your own reasons for not coming on to us; and, seeing you ride as you did, I felt no fear for your safety. It was your riding that astonished me, as it did all of my companions. Such a horse you had! He appeared to glide, rather than gallop! If I mistake not, it's the same you are now astride of. Am I right, senora? Pardon me for asking such an insignificant question."
"The same? Let me see? I make use of so many. I think I was riding this horse upon that day. Yes, yes; I am sure of it. I remember how the brute betrayed me."
"Betrayed you! How?"
"Twice he did it. Once as you and your people were approaching. The second time, when the Indians--ay Dios! not Indians, as I've since heard--were coming through the chapparal."
"But how?"
"By neighing. He should not have done it. He's had training enough to know better than that. No matter. Once I get him back to the Rio Grande he shall stay there. I shan't ride him again. He shall return to his Pastures."
"Pardon me, senorita, for speaking to you on such a subject; but I can't help thinking that it's a pity."
"What's a pity?"
"That a steed so splendid as that should be so lightly discarded. I would give much to possess him."
"You are jesting, cavallero. He is nothing beyond the common; perhaps a little pretty, and quick in his paces. My father has five thousand of his sort--many of them prettier, and, no doubt, some faster than he. He's a good roadster; and that's why I'm riding him now. If it weren't that I'm on my way home to the Rio Grande, and the journey is still before me, you'd be welcome to have him, or anybody else who cared for him, as you seem to do. Be still, musteno mio! You see there's somebody likes you better than I do."
The last speech was addressed to the mustang, who, like its rider, appeared impatient for the conversation to come to a close.
Calhoun, however, seemed equally desirous of prolonging, or, at all events, bringing it to a different termination.
"Excuse me, senorita," said he, assuming an air of businesslike earnestness, at the same time speaking apologetically; "if that be all the value you set upon the grey mustang, I should be only too glad to make an exchange with you. My horse, if not handsome, is estimated by our Texan dealers as a valuable animal. Though somewhat slow in his paces, I can promise that he will carry you safely to your home, and will serve you well afterwards."
"What, senor!" exclaimed the lady, in evident astonishment, "exchange your grand American frison for a Mexican mustang! The offer is too generous to appear other than a jest. You know that on the Rio Grande one of your horses equals in value at least three, sometimes six, of ours?"
Calhoun knew this well enough; but he knew also that the mustang ridden by Isidora would be to him worth a whole stableful of such brutes as that he was bestriding. He had been an eye-witness to its speed, besides having heard of it from others. It was the thing he stood in need of--the very thing. He would have given, not only his "grand frison" in exchange, but the full price of the mustang by way of "boot."
Fortunately for him, there was no attempt at extortion. In the composition of the Mexican maiden, however much she might be given to equestrian tastes, there was not much of the "coper." With five thousand horses in the paternal stables, or rather straying over the patrimonial plains, there was but slight motive for sharp practice; and why should she deny such trifling gratification, even though the man seeking it was a stranger--perhaps an enemy?
She did not.
"If you are in earnest, senor," was her response, "you are welcome to what you want."
"I am in earnest, senorita."
"Take him, then!" said she, leaping out of her saddle, and commencing to undo the girths, "We cannot exchange saddles: yours would be a mile too big for me!"
Calhoun was too happy to find words for a rejoinder. He hastened to assist her in removing the saddle; after which he took off his own.
In less than five minutes the horses were exchanged--the saddles and bridles being retained by their respective owners.
To Isidora there was something ludicrous in the transference. She almost laughed while it was being carried on.
Calhoun looked upon it in a different light. There was a purpose present before his mind--one of the utmost importance.
They parted without much further speech--only the usual greetings of adieu--Isidora going off on the frison; while the ex-officer, mounted on the grey mustang, continued his course in the direction of Casa del Corvo.
Chapter Seventy Nine
AN UNTIRING TRACKER.
Zeb was not long in arriving at the spot where he had "hitched" his mare. The topography of the chapparal was familiar to him; and he crossed it by a less circuitous route than that taken by the cripple.
He once more threw himself upon the trail of the broken shoe, in full belief that it would fetch out not a hundred miles from Casa del Corvo.
It led him along a road running almost direct from one of the crossings of the Rio Grande to Fort Inge. The road was a half-mile in width--a thing not uncommon in Texas, where every traveller selects his own path, alone looking to the general direction.
Along one edge of it had gone the horse with the damaged shoe.
Not all the way to Fort Inge. When within four or five miles of the post, the trail struck off from the road, at an angle of just such degree as followed in a straight line would bring out by Poindexter's plantation. So confident was Zeb of this, that he scarce deigned to keep his eye upon the ground; but rode forwards, as if a finger-post was constantly by his side.
He had long before given up following the trail afoot. Despite his professed contempt for "horse-fixings"--as he called riding--he had no objection to finish his journey in the saddle--fashed as he now was with the fatigue of protracted trailing over prairie and through chapparal. Now and then only did he cast a glance upon the ground--less to assure himself he was on the track of the broken shoe, than to notice whether something else might not be learnt from the sign, besides its mere direction.
There were stretches of the prairie where the turf, hard and dry, had taken no impression. An ordinary traveller might have supposed himself the first to pass over the ground. But Zeb Stump was not of this class; and although he could not always distinguish the hoof marks, he knew within an inch where they would again become visible--on the more moist and softer patches of the prairie.
If at any place conjecture misled him, it was only for a short distance, and he soon corrected himself by a traverse.
In this half-careless, half-cautious way, he had approached within a mile of Poindexter's plantation. Over the tops of the mezquite trees the crenelled parapet was in sight; when something he saw upon the ground caused a sudden change in his demeanour. A change, too, in his attitude; for instead of remaining on the back of his mare, he flung himself out of the saddle; threw the bridle upon her neck; and, rapidly passing in front of her, commenced taking up the trail afoot.
The mare made no stop, but continued on after him--with an air of resignation, as though she was used to such eccentricities.
To an inexperienced eye there was nothing to account for this sudden dismounting. It occurred at a place where the turf appeared untrodden by man, or beast. Alone might it be inferred from Zeb's speech, as he flung himself out of the saddle:
"His track! goin' to hum!" were the words muttered in a slow, measured tone; after which, at a slower pace, the dismounted hunter kept on along the trail.
In a little time after it conducted him into the chapparal; and in less to a stop--sudden, as if the thorny thicket had been transformed into a chevaux-de-frise, impenetrable both to him and his "critter."
It was not this. The path was still open before him--more open than ever. It was its openness that had furnished him with a cause for discontinuing his advance.
The path sloped down into a valley below--a depression in the prairie, along the concavity of which, at times, ran a tiny stream--ran arroyo. It was now dry, or only occupied by stagnant pools, at long distances apart. In the mud-covered channel was a man, with a horse close behind him--the latter led by the bridle.
There was nothing remarkable in the behaviour of the horse; he was simply following the lead of his dismounted rider.
But the man--what was he doing? In his movements there was something peculiar--something that would have puzzled an uninitiated spectator.
It did not puzzle Zeb Stump; or but for a second of time.
Almost the instant his eye fell upon it, he read the meaning of the manoeuvre, and mutteringly pronounced it to himself.
"Oblitturatin' the print o' the broken shoe, or tryin' to do thet same! 'Taint no use, Mister Cash Calhoun--no manner o' use. Ye've made yur fut marks too deep to deceive me; an by the Eturnal I'll foller them, though they shed conduck me into the fires o' hell?"
As the backwoodsman terminated his blasphemous apostrophe, the man to whom it pointed, having finished his task of obscuration, once more leaped into his saddle, and hurried on.
On foot the tracker followed; though without showing any anxiety about keeping him in sight.
There was no need for that. The sleuth hound on a fresh slot could not be more sure of again viewing his victim, than was Zeb Stump of coming up with his. No chicanery of the chapparal--no twistings or doublings-- could save Calhoun now.
The tracker advanced freely; not expecting to make halt again, till he should come within sight of Casa del Corvo.
Little blame to him that his reckoning proved wrong. Who could have foretold such an interruption as that occasioned by the encounter between Cassius Calhoun and Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos?
Though at sight of it, taken by surprise--perhaps something more--Zeb did not allow his feelings to betray his presence near the spot.
On the contrary, it seemed to stimulate him to increased caution.
Turning noiselessly round, he whispered some cabalistic words into the care of his "critter;" and then stole silently forward under cover of the acacias.
Without remonstrance, or remark, the mare followed. He soon came to a fall stop--his animal doing the same, in imitation so exact as to appear its counterpart.
A thick growth of mezquite trees separated him from the two individuals, by this time engaged in a lively interchange of speech.
He could not see them, without exposing himself to the danger of being detected in his eaves-dropping; but he heard what they said all the same.
He kept his place--listening till the horse trade was concluded, and for some time after.
Only when they had separated, and both taken departure did he venture to come forth from his cover.
Standing upon the spot lately occupied by the "swoppers," and looking "both ways at once," he exclaimed--
"Geehosophat! thur's a compack atween a he an' she-devil; an' durn'd ef I kin tell, which hez got the bessest o' the bargin!"
Chapter Eighty
A DOORWAY WELL WATCHED.
It was some time before Zeb Stump sallied forth from the covert where he had been witness to the "horse swop." Not till both the bargainers had ridden entirely out of sight. Then he went not after either; but stayed upon the spot, as if undecided which he should follow.
It was not exactly this that kept him to the place; but the necessity of taking what he was in the habit of calling a "good think."
His thoughts were about the exchange of the horses: for he had heard the whole dialogue relating thereto, and the proposal coming from Calhoun. It was this that puzzled, or rather gave him reason for reflection. What could be the motive?
Zeb knew to be true what the Mexican had said: that the States horse was, in market value, worth far more than the mustang. He knew, moreover, that Cassius Calhoun was the last man to be "coped" in a horse trade. Why, then, had he done the "deal?"
The old hunter pulled off his felt hat; gave his hand a twist or two through his unkempt hair; transferred the caress to the grizzled beard upon his chin--all the while gazing upon the ground, as if the answer to his mental interrogatory was to spring out of the grass.
"Thur air but one explication o't," he at length muttered: "the grey's the faster critter o' the two--ne'er a doubt 'beout thet; an Mister Cash wants him for his fastness: else why the durnation shed he a gin a hoss thet 'ud sell for four o' his sort in any part o' Texas, an twicet thet number in Mexiko? I reck'n he's bargained for the heels. Why? Durn me, ef I don't suspect why. He wants--he--heigh--I hev it--somethin' as kin kum up wi' the Headless!
"Thet's the very thing he's arter--sure as my name's Zeb'lon Stump. He's tried the States hoss an foun' him slow. Thet much I knowd myself. Now he thinks, wi' the mowstang, he may hev a chance to overhaul the tother, ef he kin only find him agin; an for sartin he'll go in sarch o' him.
"He's rad on now to Casser Corver--maybe to git a pick o' somethin' to eat. He won't stay thur long. 'Fore many hours hev passed, somebody 'll see him out hyur on the purayra; an thet somebody air boun' to be Zeb'lon Stump.
"Come, ye critter!" he continued, turning to the mare, "ye thort ye wur a goin' hum, did ye? Yur mistaken 'beout that. Ye've got to squat hyur for another hour or two--if not the hul o' the night. Never mind, ole gurl! The grass don't look so had; an ye shell hev a chance to git yur snout to it. Thur now--eet your durned gut-full!"
While pronouncing this apostrophe, he drew the head-stall over the ears of his mare; and, chucking the bridle across the projecting tree of the saddle, permitted her to graze at will.
Having secured her in the chapparal where he had halted, he walked on-- along the track taken by Calhoun.
Two hundred yards farther on, and the jungle terminated. Beyond stretched an open plain; and on its opposite side could be seen the hacienda of Casa del Corvo.
The figure of a horseman could be distinguished against its whitewashed facade--in another moment lost within the dark outline of the entrance.
Zeb knew who went in.
"From this place," he muttered, "I kin see him kum out; an durn me, ef I don't watch till he do kum out--ef it shed be till this time o' the morrow. So hyur goes for a spell o' patience."
He first lowered himself to his knees. Then, "squirming" round till his back came in contact with the trunk of a honey-locust, he arranged himself into a sitting posture. This done, he drew from his capacious pocket a wallet, containing a "pone" of corn-bread, a large "hunk" of fried "hog-meat," and a flask of liquor, whose perfume proclaimed it "Monongahela."
Having eaten about half the bread, and a like quantity of the meat, he returned the remaining moieties to the wallet; which he suspended over head upon a branch. Then taking a satisfactory swig from the whiskey-flask, and igniting his pipe, he leant back against the locust-- with arms folded over his breast, and eyes bent upon the gateway of Casa del Corvo.
In this way he kept watch for a period of full two hours; never changing the direction of his glance; or not long enough for any one to pass out unseen by him.
Forms came out, and went in--several of them--men and women. But even in the distance their scant light-coloured garments, and dusky complexions, told them to be only the domestics of the mansion. Besides, they were all on foot; and he, for whom Zeb was watching, should come on horseback--if at all.
His vigil was only interrupted by the going down of the sun; and then only to cause a change in his post of observation. When twilight began to fling its purple shadows over the plain, he rose to his feet; and, leisurely unfolding his tall figure, stood upright by the stem of the tree--as if this attitude was more favourable for "considering."
"Thur's jest a posserbillity the skunk mout sneak out i' the night?" was his reflection. "Leastways afore the light o' the mornin'; an I must make sure which way he takes purayra.
"'Taint no use my toatin' the maar after me," he continued, glancing in the direction where the animal had been left. "She'd only bother me. Beside, thur's goin' to be a clurrish sort o' moonlight; an she mout be seen from the nigger quarter. She'll be better hyur--both for grass and kiver."
He went back to the mare; took off the saddle; fastened the trail-rope round her neck, tying the other end to a tree; and then, unstrapping his old blanket from the cantle, he threw it across his left arm, and walked off in the direction of Casa del Corvo.
He did not proceed pari passu; but now quicker, and now more hesitatingly--timing himself, by the twilight--so that his approach might not be observed from the hacienda.
He had need of this caution: for the ground which he had to pass was like a level lawn, without copse or cover of any kind. Here and there stood a solitary tree--dwarf-oak or algarobia, but not close enough to shelter him from being seen through the windows--much less from the azotea.
Now and then he stopped altogether--to wait for the deepening of the twilight.
Working his way in this stealthy manner, he arrived within less than two hundred yards of the walls--just as the last trace of sunlight disappeared from the sky.
He had reached the goal of his journey--for that day--and the spot on which he was likely to pass the night.
A low stemless bush grew near; and, laying himself down behind it, he resumed the espionage, that could scarce be said to have been interrupted.
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Throughout the live-long night Zeb Stump never closed both eyes at the same time. One was always on the watch; and the unflagging earnestness, with which he maintained it, proclaimed him to be acting under the influence of some motive beyond the common.
During the earlier hours he was not without sounds to cheer, or at least relieve, the monotony of his lonely vigil. There was the hum of voices from the slave cabins; with now and then a peal of laughter. But this was more suppressed than customary; nor was it accompanied by the clear strain of the violin, or the lively tink-a-tink of the banjo--sounds almost characteristic of the "negro-quarter," at night.
The sombre silence that hung over the "big house" extended to the hearths of its sable retainers.
Before midnight the voices became hushed, and stillness reigned everywhere; broken only at intervals by the howl of a straying hound-- uttered in response to the howl-bark of a coyote taking care to keep far out upon the plain.
The watcher had spent a wearisome day, and could have slept--but for his thoughts. Once when these threatened to forsake him, and he was in danger of dozing, he started suddenly to his feet; took a turn or two over the sward; and, then lying down again, re-lit his pipe; stuck his head into the heart of the bush; and smoked away till the bowl was burnt empty.
During all this time, he kept his eyes upon the great gateway of the mansion; whose massive door--he could tell by the moonlight shining upon it--remained shut.
Again did he change his post of observation; the sun's rising--as its setting had done--seeming to give him the cue.
As the first tint of dawn displayed itself on the horizon, he rose gently to his feet; clutched the blanket so as to bring its edges in contact across his breast; and, turning his back upon Casa del Corvo, walked slowly away--taking the same track by which he had approached it on the preceding night.
And again with unequal steps: at short intervals stopping and looking back--under his arm, or over his shoulder.
Nowhere did he make a prolonged pause; until reaching the locust-tree, under whose shade he had made his evening meal; and there, in the same identical attitude, he proceeded to break his fast.
The second half of the "pone" and the remaining moiety of the pork, soon disappeared between his teeth; after which followed the liquor that had been left in his flask.
He had refilled his pipe, and was about relighting it, when an object came before his eyes, that caused him hastily to return his flint and steel to the pouch from which he had taken them.
Through the blue mist of the morning the entrance of Casa del Corvo showed a darker disc. The door had been drawn open.
Almost at the same instant a horseman was seen to sally forth, mounted upon a small grey horse; and the door was at once closed behind him.
Zeb Stump made no note of this. He only looked to see what direction the early traveller would take.
Less than a score of seconds sufficed to satisfy him. The horse's head and the face of the rider were turned towards himself.
He lost no time in trying to identify either. He did not doubt of its being the same man and horse, that had passed that spot on the evening before; and he was equally confident they were going to pass it again.
What he did was to shamble up to his mare; in some haste get her saddled and bridled; and then, having taken up his trail rope, lead her off into a cover--from which he could command a view of the chapparal path, without danger of being himself seen.
This done, he awaited the arrival of the traveller on the grey steed-- whom he knew to be Captain Cassius Calhoun.
He waited still longer--until the latter had trotted past; until he had gone quite through the belt of chapparal, and in the hazy light of the morning gradually disappeared on the prairie beyond.
Not till then did Zeb Stump clamber into his saddle; and, "prodding" his solitary spur against the ribs of his roadster, cause the latter to move on.
He went after Cassius Calhoun; but without showing the slightest concern about keeping the latter in sight!
He needed not this to guide him. The dew upon the grass was to him a spotless page--the tracks of the grey mustang a type, as legible as the lines of a printed book.
He could read them at a trot; ay, going at a gallop!
Chapter Eighty One
HEADS DOWN--HEELS UP!
Without suspicion that he had been seen leaving the house--except by Pluto, who had saddled the grey mustang--Calhoun rode on across the prairie.
Equally unsuspicious was he, in passing the point where Zeb Stump stood crouching in concealment.
In the dim light of the morning he supposed himself unseen by human eye; and he recked not of any other.
After parting from the timbered border, he struck off towards the Nueces; riding at a brisk trot--now and then increasing to a canter.
Por the first six or eight miles he took but little note of aught that was around. An occasional glance along the horizon seemed to satisfy him; and this extended only to that portion of the vast circle before his face. He looked neither to the right nor the left; and only once behind--after getting some distance from the skirt of the chapparal.
Before him was the object--still unseen--upon which his thoughts were straying.
What that object was he and only one other knew--that other Zeb Stump-- though little did Calhoun imagine that mortal man could have a suspicion of the nature of his early errand.
The old hunter had only conjectured it; but it was a conjecture of the truth of which he was as certain, as if the ex-captain had made him his confidant. He knew that the latter had gone off in search of the Headless Horseman--in hopes of renewing the chase of yesterday, with a better chance of effecting a capture.
Though bestriding a steed fleet as a Texan stag, Calhoun was by no means sanguine of success. There were many chances against his getting sight of the game he intended to take: at least two to one; and this it was that formed the theme of his reflections as he rode onward.
The uncertainty troubled him; but he was solaced by a hope founded upon some late experiences.
There was a particular place where he had twice encountered the thing he was in search of. It might be there again?
This was an embayment of green sward, where the savannah was bordered by the chapparal, and close to the embouchure of that opening--where it was supposed the murder had been committed!
"Odd he should always make back there?" reflected Calhoun, as he pondered upon the circumstance. "Damned ugly odd it is! Looks as if he knew--. Bah! It's only because the grass is better, and that pond by the side of it. Well! I hope he's been thinking that way this morning. If so, there'll be a chance of finding him. If not, I must go on through the chapparal; and hang me if I like it--though it be in the daylight. Ugh!
"Pish! what's there to fear--now that he's safe in limbo? Nothing but the bit of lead; and it I must have, if I should ride this thing till it drops dead in its tracks. Holy Heaven! what's that out yonder?"
These last six words were spoken aloud. All the rest had been a soliloquy in thought.
The speaker, on pronouncing them, pulled up, almost dragging the mustang on its haunches; and with eyes that seemed ready to start from their sockets, sate gazing across the plain.
There was something more than surprise in that stedfast glance--there was horror.
And no wonder: for the spectacle upon which it rested was one to terrify the stoutest heart.
The sun had stolen up above the horizon of the prairie, and was behind the rider's back, in the direct line of the course he had been pursuing. Before him, along the heaven's edge, extended a belt of bluish mist-- the exhalation arising out of the chapparal--now not far distant. The trees themselves were unseen--concealed under the film floating over them, that like a veil of purple gauze, rose to a considerable height above their tops--gradually merging into the deeper azure of the sky.
On this veil, or moving behind it--as in the transparencies of a stage scene--appeared a form strange enough to have left the spectator incredulous, had he not beheld it before. It was that of the Headless Horseman.
But not as seen before--either by Calhoun himself, or any of the others. No. It was now altogether different. In shape the same; but in size it was increased to tenfold its original dimensions!
No longer a man, but a Colossus--a giant. No longer a horse, but an animal of equine shape, with the towering height and huge massive bulk of a mastodon!
Nor was this all of the new to be noted about the Headless Horseman. A still greater change was presented in his appearance; one yet more inexplicable, if that could possibly be. He was no longer walking upon the ground, but against the sky; both horse and rider moving in an inverted position! The hoofs of the former were distinctly perceptible upon the upper edge of the film; while the shoulders--I had almost said head--of the latter were close down to the line of the horizon! The serape shrouding them hung in the right direction--not as regarded the laws of gravity, but the attitude of the wearer. So, too, the bridle reins, the mane, and sweeping tail of the horse. All draped upwards!
When first seen, the spectral form--now more spectre-like than ever--was going at a slow, leisurely walk. In this pace it for some time continued--Calhoun gazing upon it with a heart brimful of horror.
All of a sudden it assumed a change. Its regular outlines became confused by a quick transformation; the horse having turned, and gone off at a trot in the opposite direction, though still with his heels against the sky!
The spectre had become alarmed, and was retreating!
Calhoun, half palsied with fear, would have kept his ground, and permitted it to depart, but for his own horse; that, just then shying suddenly round, placed him face to face with the explanation.
As he turned, the tap of a shod hoof upon the prairie turf admonished him that a real horseman was near--if that could be called real, which had thrown such a frightful shadow.
"It's the mirage!" he exclaimed, with the addition of an oath to give vent to his chagrin. "What a fool I've been to let it humbug me! There's the damned thing that did it: the very thing I'm in search of. And so close too! If I'd known, I might have got hold of him before he saw me. Now for a chase; and, by God, I'll grup him, if I have to gallop to the other end of Texas!"
Voice, spur, and whip were simultaneously exerted to prove the speaker's earnestness; and in five minutes after, two horsemen were going at full stretch across the prairie--their horses both to the prairie born--one closely pursuing the other--the pursued without a head; the pursuer with a heart that throbbed under a desperate determination.
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The chase was not a long one--at least, so far as it led over the open prairie; and Calhoun had begun to congratulate himself on the prospect of a capture.
His horse appeared the swifter; but this may have arisen from his being more earnestly urged; or that the other was not sufficiently scared to care for escaping. Certainly the grey steed gained ground--at length getting so close, that Calhoun made ready his rifle.
His intention was to shoot the horse down, and so put an end to the pursuit.
He would have fired on the instant, but for the fear of a miss. But having made more than one already, he restrained himself from pulling trigger, till he could ride close enough to secure killing shot.
While thus hesitating, the chase veered suddenly from off the treeless plain, and dashed into the opening of the timber.
This movement, unexpected by the pursuer, caused him to lose ground; and in the endeavour to regain it, more than a half mile of distance was left behind him.
He was approaching a spot well, too well, known to him--the place where blood had been spilt.
On any other occasion he would have shunned it; but there was in his heart a thought that hindered him from dwelling upon memories of the past--steeling it against all reflection, except a cold fear for the future. The capture of the strange equestrian could alone allay this fear--by removing the danger he dreaded.
Once more he had gained ground in the chase. The spread nostrils of his steed were almost on a line with the sweeping tail of that pursued. His rifle lay ready in his left hand, its trigger guard covered by the fingers of his right. He was searching for a spot to take aim at.
In another second the shot would have been fired, and a bullet sent between the ribs of the retreating horse, when the latter, as if becoming aware of the danger, made a quick curvet to the off side; and then, aiming a kick at the snout of his pursuer, bounded on in a different direction!
The suddenness of the demonstration, with the sharp, spiteful "squeal" that accompanied it--appearing almost to speak of an unearthly intelligence--for the moment disconcerted Calhoun; as it did the horse he was riding.
The latter came to a stop; and refused to go farther; till the spur, plunged deep between his ribs, once more forced him to the gallop.
And now more earnestly than ever did his rider urge him on; for the pursued, no longer keeping to the path, was heading direct for the thicket. The chase might there terminate, without the chased animal being either killed or captured.
Hitherto Calhoun had only been thinking of a trial of speed. He had not anticipated such an ending, as was now both possible and probable; and with a more reckless resolve, he once more raised his rifle for the shot.
By this time both were close in to the bushes--the Headless Horseman already half-screened by the leafy branches that swept swishing along his sides. Only the hips of his horse could be aimed at; and upon these was the gun levelled.
The sulphureous smoke spurted forth from its muzzle; the crack was heard simultaneously; and, as if caused by the discharge, a dark object came whirling through the cloud, and fell with a dull "thud" upon the turf.
With a bound and a roll--that brought it among the feet of Calhoun's horse--it became stationary.
Stationary, but not still. It continued to oscillate from side to side, like a top before ceasing to spin.
The grey steed snorted, and reared back. His rider uttered a cry of intensified alarm.
And no wonder. If read in Shakespearean lore, he might have appropriately repeated the words "Shake not those gory locks": for, on the ground beneath, was the head of a man--still sticking in its hat-- whose stiff orbicular brim hindered it from staying still.
The face was toward Calhoun--upturned at just such an angle as to bring it full before him. The features were bloodstained, wan, and shrivelled; the eyes open, but cold and dim, like balls of blown glass; the teeth gleaming white between livid lips, yet seemingly set in an expression of careless contentment.
All this saw Cassius Calhoun.
He saw it with fear and trembling. Not for the supernatural or unknown, but for the real and truly comprehended.
Short was his interview with that silent, but speaking head. Ere it had ceased to oscillate on the smooth sward, he wrenched his horse around; struck the rowels deep; and galloped away from the ground!
No farther went he in pursuit of the Headless Horseman--still heard breaking through the bushes--but back--back to the prairie; and on, on, to Casa del Corvo!
Chapter Eighty Two
A QUEER PARCEL.
The backwoodsman, after emerging from the thicket, proceeded as leisurely along the trail, as if he had the whole day before him, and no particular motive for making haste.
And yet, one closely scrutinising his features, might there have observed an expression of intense eagerness; that accorded with his nervous twitching in the saddle, and the sharp glances from time to time cast before him.
He scarce deigned to look upon the "sign" left by Calhoun. It he could read out of the corner of his eye. As to following it, the old mare could have done that without him!
It was not this knowledge that caused him to hang back; for he would have preferred keeping Calhoun in sight. But by doing this, the latter might see him; and so frustrate the end he desired to attain.
This end was of more importance than any acts that might occur between; and, to make himself acquainted with the latter, Zeb Stump trusted to the craft of his intellect, rather than the skill of his senses.
Advancing slowly and with caution--but with that constancy that ensures good speed--he arrived at length on the spot where the mirage had made itself manifest to Calhoun.
Zeb saw nothing of this. It was gone; and the sky stretched down to the prairie--the blue meeting the green in a straight unbroken line.
He saw, however, what excited him almost as much as the spectre would have done: two sets of horse-tracks going together--those that went after being the hoof-marks of Calhoun's new horse--of which Zeb had already taken the measure.
About the tracks underneath he had no conjecture--at least as regarded their identification. These he knew, as well as if his own mare had made them.
"The skunk's hed a find!" were the words that escaped him, as he sate gazing upon the double trail. "It don't foller from thet," he continued, in the same careless drawl, "thet he hez made a catch. An' yit, who knows? Durn me, ef he moutn't! Thur's lots o' chances for his doin' it. The mowstang may a let him come clost up--seein' as he's ridin' one o' its own sort; an ef it dud--ay, ef it dud--
"What the durnation am I stannin' hyur for? Thur ain't no time to be wasted in shiller-shallerin'. Ef he shed grup thet critter, an git what he wants from it, then I mout whissel for what I want, 'ithout the ghost o' a chance for gettin' it.
"I must make a better rate o' speed. Gee-up, ole gurl; an see ef ye can't overtake that ere grey hoss, as scuttled past half-a-hour agone. Now for a spell o' yur swiftness, the which you kin show along wi' any o' them, I reckon--thet air when ye're pressed. Gee-up!"
Instead of using the cruel means employed by him when wanting his mare to make her best speed, he only drove the old spur against her ribs, and started her into a trot. He had no desire to travel more rapidly than was consistent with caution; and while trotting he kept his eyes sharply ranging along the skyline in front of him.
"From the way his track runs," was his reflection, "I kin tell pretty nigh whar it's goin' to fetch out. Everything seems to go that way; an so did he, poor young fellur--never more to come back. Ah, wal! ef t'aint possible to ree-vive him agin, may be it air to squar the yards wi' the skunk as destroyed him. The Scripter sez, `a eye for a eye, an a tooth for a tooth,' an I reckin I'll shet up somebody's daylights, an spoil the use o' thur ivories afore I hev done wi' him. Somebody as don't suspeeshun it neyther, an that same--. Heigh! Yonner he goes! An' yonner too the Headless, by Geehosophat! Full gallup both; an durn me, if the grey aint a overtakin' him!
"They aint comin' this way, so 'tain't no use in our squattin', ole gurl. Stan' steady for all that. He mout see us movin'.
"No fear. He's too full o' his frolic to look anywhar else, than straight custrut afore him. Ha! jest as I expected--into the openin'! Right down it, fast as heels kin carry 'em!
"Now, my maar, on we go agin!"
Another stage of trotting--with his eyes kept steadfastly fixed upon the chapparal gap--brought Zeb to the timber.
Although the chase had long since turned the angle of the avenue, and was now out of sight, he did not go along the open ground; but among the bushes that bordered it.
He went so as to command a view of the clear track for some distance ahead; at the same time taking care that neither himself, nor his mare, might be seen by any one advancing from the opposite direction.
He did not anticipate meeting any one--much less the man who soon after came in sight.
He was not greatly surprised at hearing a shot: for he had been listening for it, ever since he had set eyes on the chase. He was rather in surprise at not hearing it sooner; and when the crack did come, he recognised the report of a yager rifle, and knew whose gun had been discharged.
He was more astonished to see its owner returning along the lane--in less than five minutes after the shot had been fired--returning, too, with a rapidity that told of retreat!
"Comin' back agin--an so soon!" he muttered, on perceiving Calhoun. "Dog-goned queery thet air! Thur's somethin' amiss, more'n a miss, I reck'n. Ho, ho, ho! Goin', too, as if hell war arter him! Maybe it's the Headless hisself, and thur's been a changin' about in the chase--tit for tat! Darn me, ef it don't look like it! I'd gie a silver dollar to see thet sort o' a thing. He, he, he, ho, ho, hoo!"
Long before this, the hunter had slipped out of his saddle, and taken the precaution to screen both himself and his animal from the chance of being seen by the retreating rider--who promise soon to pass the spot.
And soon did he pass it, going at such a gait, and with such a wild abstracted air, that Zeb would scarce have been perceived had he been standing uncovered in the avenue!
"Geehosophat!" mentally ejaculated the backwoodsman, as the passion-scathed countenance came near enough to be scrutinised. "If hell ain't arter, it's inside o' him! Durn me, ef thet face ain't the ugliest picter this coon ever clapped eyes on. I shed pity the wife as gets him. Poor Miss Peintdexter! I hope she'll be able to steer clur o' havin' sech a cut-throat as him to be her lord an master.
"What's up anyhow? Thar don't 'pear to be anythin' arter him? An' he still keeps on! Whar's he boun' for now? I must foller an see.
"To hum agin!" exclaimed the hunter, after going on to the edge of the chapparal, and observed Calhoun still going at a gallop, with head turned homeward. "Hum agin, for sartin!
"Now, ole gurl!" he continued, having remained silent till the grey horse was nearly out of sight, "You an me goes t'other way. We must find out what thet shot wur fired for."
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In ten minutes after, Zeb had alighted from his mare, and lifted up from the ground an object, the stoutest heart might have felt horror in taking hold of--disgust, even, in touching!
Not so the old hunter. In that object he beheld the lineaments of a face well known to him--despite the shrivelling of the skin, and the blood streaks that so fearfully falsified its expression--still dear to him, despite death and a merciless mutilation.
He had loved that face, when it belonged to a boy; he now cherished it, belonging not to anybody!
Clasping the rim of the hat that fitted tightly to the temples--Zeb endeavoured to take it off. He did not succeed. The head was swollen so as almost to burst the bullion band twisted around it!
Holding it in its natural position, Zeb stood for a time gazing tenderly on the face.
"Lord, O Lordy!" he drawlingly exclaimed, "what a present to take back to his father, to say nothin' o' the sister! I don't think I'll take it. It air better to bury the thing out hyur, an say no more abeout it.
"No; durn me ef I do! What am I thinkin' o'? Tho' I don't exackly see how it may help to sarcumstantiate the chain o' evvydince, it may do somethin' torst it. Durned queery witness it 'll be to purduce in a coort o' justis!"
Saying this, he unstrapped his old blanket; and, using it as a wrapper, carefully packed within it head, hat, and all.
Then, hanging the strange bundle over the horn of his saddle, he remounted his mare, and rode reflectingly away.
Chapter Eighty Three
LIMBS OF THE LAW.
On the third day after Maurice Gerald became an inmate of the military prison the fever had forsaken him, and he no longer talked incoherently. On the fourth he was almost restored to his health and strength. The fifth was appointed for his trial!
This haste--that elsewhere would have been considered indecent--was thought nothing of in Texas; where a man may commit a capital offence, be tried, and hanged within the short space of four-and-twenty hours!
His enemies, who were numerous, for some reason of their own, insisted upon despatch: while his friends, who were few, could urge no good reason against it.
Among the populace there was the usual clamouring for prompt and speedy justice; fortified by that exciting phrase, old as the creation itself: "that the blood of the murdered man was calling from the ground for vengeance."
The advocates of an early trial were favoured by a fortuitous circumstance. The judge of the Supreme Court chanced just then to be going his circuit; and the days devoted to clearing the calendar at Fort Inge, had been appointed for that very week.
There was, therefore, a sort of necessity, that the case of Maurice Gerald, as of the other suspected murderers, should be tried within a limited time.
As no one objected, there was no one to ask for a postponement; and it stood upon the docket for the day in question--the fifteenth of the month.
The accused might require the services of a legal adviser. There was no regular practitioner in the place: as in these frontier districts the gentlemen of the long robe usually travel in company with the Court; and the Court had not yet arrived. For all that, a lawyer had appeared: a "counsellor" of distinction; who had come all the way from San Antonio, to conduct the case. As a volunteer he had presented himself!
It may have been generosity on the part of this gentleman, or an eye to Congress, though it was said that gold, presented by fair fingers, had induced him to make the journey.
When it rains, it rains. The adage is true in Texas as regards the elements; and on this occasion it was true of the lawyers.
The day before that appointed for the trial of the mustanger, a second presented himself at Fort Inge, who put forward his claim to be upon the side of the prisoner.
This gentleman had made a still longer journey than he of San Antonio; a voyage, in fact: since he had crossed the great Atlantic, starting from the metropolis of the Emerald Isle. He had come for no other purpose than to hold communication with the man accused of having committed a murder!
It is true, the errand that had brought him did not anticipate this; and the Dublin solicitor was no little astonished when, after depositing his travelling traps under the roof of Mr Oberdoffer's hostelry, and making inquiry about Maurice Gerald, he was told that the young Irishman was shut up in the guard-house.
Still greater the attorney's astonishment on learning the cause of his incarceration.
"Fwhat! the son of a Munsther Gerald accused of murdher! The heir of Castle Ballagh, wid its bewtiful park and demesne. Fwy, I've got the papers in my portmantyee here. Faugh-a-ballagh! Show me the way to him!"
Though the "Texan" Boniface was inclined to consider his recently arrived guest entitled to a suspicion of lunacy, he assented to his request; and furnished him with a guide to the guard-house.
If the Irish attorney was mad, there appeared to be method in his madness. Instead of being denied admittance to the accused criminal, he was made welcome to go in and out of the military prison--as often as it seemed good to him.
Some document he had laid before the eyes of the major-commandant, had procured him this privilege; at the same time placing him en rapport, in a friendly way, with the Texan "counsellor."
The advent of the Irish attorney at such a crisis gave rise to much speculation at the Port, the village, and throughout the settlement. The bar-room of the "Rough and Ready" was rife with conjecturers--quidnuncs they could scarcely be called: since in Texas the genus does not exist.
A certain grotesqueness about the man added to the national instinct for guessing--which had been rendered excruciatingly keen through some revelations, contributed by "Old Duffer."
For all that, the transatlantic limb of the law proved himself tolerably true to the traditions of his craft. With the exception of the trifling imprudences already detailed--drawn from him in the first moments of surprise--he never afterwards committed himself; but kept his lips close as an oyster at ebb tide.
There was not much time for him to use his tongue. On the day after his arrival the trial was to take place; and during most of the interval he was either in the guard-house along with the prisoner, or closeted with the San Antonio counsel.
The rumour became rife that Maurice Gerald had told them a tale--a strange weird story--but of its details the world outside remained in itching ignorance.
There was one who knew it--one able to confirm it--Zeb Stump the hunter.
There may have been another; but this other was not in the confidence either of the accused or his counsel.
Zeb himself did not appear in their company. Only once had he been seen conferring with them. After that he was gone--both from the guard-house and the settlement, as everybody supposed, about his ordinary business-- in search of deer, "baar," or "gobbler."
Everybody was in error. Zeb for the time had forsaken his usual pursuits, or, at all events, the game he was accustomed to chase, capture, and kill.
It is true he was out upon a stalking expedition; but instead of birds or beasts, he was after an animal of neither sort; one that could not be classed with creatures either of the earth or the air--a horseman without a head!
Chapter Eighty Four
AN AFFECTIONATE NEPHEW.
"Tried to-morrow--to-morrow, thank God! Not likely that anybody 'll catch that cursed thing before then--to be hoped, never.
"It is all I've got to fear. I defy them to tell what's happened without that. Hang me if I know myself! Enough only to--.
"Queer, the coming of this Irish pettifogger!
"Queer, too, the fellow from San Antonio! Wonder who and what's brought him? Somebody's promised him his costs?
"Damn 'em! I don't care, not the value of a red cent. They can make nothing out of it, but that Gerald did the deed. Everything points that way; and everybody thinks so. They're bound to convict him.
"Zeb Stump don't think it, the suspicious old snake! He's nowhere to be found. Wonder where he has gone? On a hunt, they say. 'Tain't likely, such time as this. What if he be hunting it? What if he should catch it?
"I'd try again myself, if there was time. There ain't. Before to-morrow night it'll be all over; and afterwards if there should turn up--. Damn afterwards! The thing is to make sure now. Let the future look to itself. With one man hung for the murder, 'tain't likely they'd care to accuse another. Even if something suspicious did turn up! they'd be shy to take hold of it. It would be like condemning themselves!
"I reckon, I've got all right with the Regulators. Sam Manley himself appears pretty well convinced. I knocked his doubts upon the head, when I told him what I'd heard that night. A little more than I did hear; though that was enough to make a man stark, staring mad. Damn!
"It's no use crying over spilt milk. She's met the man, and there's an end of it. She'll never meet him again, and that's another end of it-- except she meet him in heaven. Well; that will depend upon herself.
"I don't think anything has happened between them. She's not the sort for that, with all her wildness; and it may be what that yellow wench tells me--only gratitude. No, no, no! It can't be. Gratitude don't get out of its bed in the middle of the night--to keep appointments at the bottom of a garden? She loves him--she loves him! Let her love and be damned! She shall never have him. She shall never see him again, unless she prove obstinate; and then it will be but to condemn him. A word from her, and he's a hanged man.
"She shall speak it, if she don't say that other word, I've twice asked her for. The third time will be the last. One more refusal, and I show my hand. Not only shall this Irish adventurer meet his doom; but she shall be his condemner; and the plantation, house, niggers, everything--. Ah! uncle Woodley; I wanted to see you."
The soliloquy above reported took place in a chamber, tenanted only by Cassius Calhoun.
It was Woodley Poindexter who interrupted it. Sad, silent, straying through the corridors of Casa del Corvo, he had entered the apartment usually occupied by his nephew--more by chance than from any premeditated purpose.
"Want me! For what, nephew?"
There was a tone of humility, almost obeisance, in the speech of the broken man. The once proud Poindexter--before whom two hundred slaves had trembled every day, every hour of their lives, now stood in the presence of his master!
True, it was his own nephew, who had the power to humiliate him--his sister's son.
But there was not much in that, considering the character of the man.
"I want to talk to you about Loo," was the rejoinder of Calhoun.
It was the very subject Woodley Poindexter would have shunned. It was something he dreaded to think about, much less make the topic of discourse; and less still with him who now challenged it.
Nevertheless, he did not betray surprise. He scarce felt it. Something said or done on the day before had led him to anticipate this request for a conversation--as also the nature of the subject.
The manner in which Calhoun introduced it, did not diminish his uneasiness. It sounded more like a demand than a request.
"About Loo? What of her?" he inquired, with assumed calmness.
"Well," said Calhoun, apparently in reluctant utterance, as if shy about entering upon the subject, or pretending to be so, "I--I--wanted--"
"I'd rather," put in the planter, taking advantage of the other's hesitancy, "I'd rather not speak of her now."
This was said almost supplicatingly.
"And why not now, uncle?" asked Calhoun, emboldened by the show of opposition.
"You know my reasons, nephew?"
"Well, I know the time is not pleasant. Poor Henry missing--supposed to be--After all, he may turn up yet, and everything be right again."
"Never! we shall never see him again--living or dead. I have no longer a son?"
"You have a daughter; and she--"
"Has disgraced me!"
"I don't believe it, uncle--no."
"What means those things I've heard--myself seen? What could have taken her there--twenty miles across the country--alone--in the hut of a common horse-trader--standing by his bedside? O God! And why should she have interposed to save him--him, the murderer of my son--her own brother? O God!"
"Her own story explains the first--satisfactorily, as I think."
Calhoun did not think so.
"The second is simple enough. Any woman would have done the same--a woman like Loo."
"There is none like her. I, her father, say so. Oh! that I could think it is, as you say! My poor daughter! who should now be dearer to me than ever--now that I have no son!"
"It is for her to find you a son--one already related to you; and who can promise to play the part--with perhaps not so much affection as him you have lost, but with all he has the power to give. I won't talk to you in riddles, Uncle Woodley. You know what I mean; and how my mind's made up about this matter. I want Loo!"
The planter showed no surprise at the laconic declaration. He expected it. For all that, the shadow became darker on his brow. It was evident he did not relish the proposed alliance.
This may seem strange. Up to a late period, he had been its advocate-- in his own mind--and more than once, delicately, in the ear of his daughter.
Previous to the migration into Texas, he had known comparatively little of his nephew.
Since coming to manhood, Calhoun had been a citizen of the state of Mississippi--more frequently a dweller in the dissipated city of New Orleans. An occasional visit to the Louisiana plantation was all his uncle had seen of him; until the developing beauty of his cousin Louise gave him the inducement to make these visits at shorter intervals--each time protracting them to a longer stay.
There was then twelve months of campaigning in Mexico; where he rose to the rank of captain; and, after his conquests in war, he had returned home with the full determination to make a conquest in love--the heart of his Creole cousin.
From that time his residence under his uncle's roof had been more permanent. If not altogether liked by the young lady, he had made himself welcome to her father, by means seldom known to fail.
The planter, once rich, was now poor. Extravagance had reduced his estate to a hopeless indebtedness. With his nephew, the order was reversed: once poor, he was now rich. Chance had made him so. Under the circumstances, it was not surprising, that money had passed between them.
In his native place, and among his old neighbours, Woodley Poindexter still commanded sufficient homage to shield him from the suspicion of being under his nephew; as also to restrain the latter from exhibiting the customary arrogance of the creditor.
It was only after the move into Texas, that their relations began to assume that peculiar character observable between mortgagor and mortgagee.
It grew more patent, after several attempts at love-making on the part of Calhoun, with corresponding repulses on the part of Louise.
The planter had now a better opportunity of becoming acquainted with the true character of his nephew; and almost every day; since their arrival at Casa del Corvo, had this been developing itself to his discredit.
Calhoun's quarrel with the mustanger, and its ending, had not strengthened his uncle's respect for him; though, as a kinsman, he was under the necessity of taking sides with him.
There had occurred other circumstances to cause a change in his feelings--to make him, notwithstanding its many advantages, dislike the connection.
Alas! there was much also to render it, if not agreeable, at least not to be slightingly set aside.
Indecision--perhaps more than the sorrow for his son's loss dictated the character of his reply.
"If I understand you aright, nephew, you mean marriage! Surely it is not the time to talk of it now--while death is in our house! To think of such a thing would cause a scandal throughout the settlement."
"You mistake me, uncle. I do not mean marriage--that is, not now. Only something that will secure it--when the proper time arrives."
"I do not understand you, Cash."
"You'll do that, if you only listen to me a minute."
"Go on."
"Well; what I want to say is this. I've made up my mind to get married. I'm now close upon thirty--as you know; and at that time a man begins to get tired of running about the world. I'm damnably tired of it; and don't intend to keep single any longer. I'm willing to have Loo for my wife. There need be no hurry about it. All I want now is her promise; signed and sealed, that there may be no fluke, or uncertainty. I want the thing settled. When these bothers blow past, it will be time enough to talk of the wedding business, and that sort of thing."
The word "bothers," with the speech of which it formed part, grated harshly on the ear of a father, mourning for his murdered son!
The spirit of Woodley Poindexter was aroused--almost to the resumption of its old pride, and the indignation that had oft accompanied it.
It soon cowered again. On one side he saw land, slaves, wealth, position; on the other, penury that seemed perdition.
He did not yield altogether; as may be guessed by the character of his reply.
"Well, nephew; you have certainly spoken plain enough. But I know not my daughter's disposition towards you. You say you are willing to have her for your wife. Is she willing to have you? I suppose there is a question about that?"
"I think, uncle, it will depend a good deal upon yourself. You are her father. Surely you can convince her?"
"I'm not so sure of that. She's not of the kind to be convinced-- against her will. You, Cash, know that as well as I."
"Well, I only know that I intend getting `spliced,' as the sailors say; and I'd like Loo for the mistress of Casa del Corvo, better than any other woman in the Settlement--in all Texas, for that matter."
Woodley Poindexter recoiled at the ungracious speech. It was the first time he had been told, that he was not the master of Casa del Corvo! Indirectly as the information had been conveyed, he understood it.
Once more rose before his mind the reality of lands, slaves, wealth, and social status--alongside, the apparition of poverty and social abasement.
The last looked hideous; though not more so than the man who stood before him--his own nephew--soliciting to become his son!
For purposes impossible to comprehend, God often suffers himself to be defeated by the Devil. In this instance was it so. The good in Poindexter's heart succumbed to the evil. He promised to assist his nephew, in destroying the happiness of his daughter.
"Loo!"
"Father!"
"I come to ask a favour from you."
"What is it, father?"
"You know that your cousin Cash loves you. He is ready to die for--more and better still, to marry you."
"But I am not ready to marry him. No, father; I shall die first. The presumptuous wretch! I know what it means. And he has sent you to make this proposal! Tell him in return, that, sooner than consent to become his wife, I'd go upon the prairies--and seek my living by lassoing wild horses! Tell him that!"
"Reflect, daughter! You are, perhaps, not aware that--"
"That my cousin is your creditor. I know all that, dear father. But I know also that you are Woodley Poindexter, and I your daughter."
Delicately as the hint was given, it produced the desired effect. The spirit of the planter surged up to its ancient pride, His reply was:--
"Dearest Louise! image of your mother! I had doubted you. Forgive me, my noble girl! Let the past be forgotten. I shall leave it to yourself. You are free to refuse him!"