"Great Bear is a great chief," said Bowie, at last, looking at the subtle Comanche steadily. "He has talked enough. What does he say?
Will he fight now, or will he go to his lodge?--Bugle, ready!"
The bugler raised to his lips his hollow twist of bra.s.s, but a storm of "Ughs" broke out among the Comanche warriors.
Most of them had been near enough to hear the conversation. They were on dangerous ground and were becoming altogether willing to get out of it. At this moment they saw rifles c.o.c.ked and half lifted. They knew that every white man before them was a dead shot, and none of them felt any desire to hear a bugle blow or a rifle crack.
The chief himself considered that he had talked long enough, and that he had been sufficiently insolent to preserve his dignity. He could therefore pretend to yield the required point.
"Good!" he replied. "Great chief go. Big Knife ride to fort. Lipan dogs run away. Save hair. Comanches take all some day. Not now.
Texan heap friend. Shut mouth. Ugh!"
He offered his hand, and Bowie took it, but after that he and his rangers sat upon their horses in grim, menacing silence, while the Comanche warriors rode out of the chaparral. They did so glumly enough, for they had been outwitted and they had lost some of their best braves.
"Now, men," said Bowie, "it was touch and go. They were too many for us if it was a fight. We"re out of it this time, but they won"t forget or forgive it."
"You bet they won"t," replied a ranger; "but I had a sure bead on Great Bear"s throat medal, and he knew it. He"d ha" jumped jest once."
"Back to the Alamo," said Bowie. "We must make good time."
Away they went, and in an instant the appearance of military discipline had vanished. The leader and his hard-fighting comrades were once more fellow-frontiersmen rather than "soldiers." Differences of rank, indeed, were but faintly marked upon the dress or trappings of any of them.
There were no epaulets or sashes, but at no moment of time could an observer have been in doubt as to who was in command. The roughest and freest spoken of them all showed marked deference whenever he addressed or even came near to the man whom Great Bear himself, with all his pride, had acknowledged to be his superior.
"Jim," said Bowie to a tall horseman who was at his side when they came out into the open prairie, "have you made up your mind to go with me into Chihuahua?"
"Go!" exclaimed Jim. "Why, colonel, I ain"t enlisted. Travis can"t stop me. Of course I"ll go. Wouldn"t miss it for a pile. It "ll be as good as a spree."
So said more than one of the other rangers when opportunity came to ask them the same question. To each the romantic legend of the hidden treasures of the Aztec kings had been mentioned confidentially. No doubt it acted as a bait, but every way as attractive, apparently, was the prospect of a raid into Mexico, a prolonged hunting and scouting expedition, and a fair chance for brushes with Bravo"s lancers.
"A Comanche or Lipan is worth two of "em," they said, "and one American"s worth four. We shall outnumber any lot of Greasers we"re at all likely to run against."
There was a great deal too much of arrogance and overbearing self-confidence among the men of the Texas border, and at no distant day they were to pay for it bitterly.
They had gone and the chaparral seemed to be deserted, but it was not entirely without inhabitants.
"Tetzcatl!"
"Ugh! Red Wolf!"
There they sat, once more confronting each other, the young Lipan on his pony and the old tiger on his mule.
"Boy heap fool," said Tetzcatl. "Comanches in chaparral. Castro gone."
"Ugh!" said Red Wolf. "See one Comanche ride away. Keep arrow."
Tetzcatl"s eyes were angry. Part of his disappointment had been the renewal of the feud between the tribes. He had hoped for their joint help in working out his own revenges. Nevertheless he now listened to a further explanation, and learned that a noted Comanche warrior had no use for bow or lance just then, because of an arrow that was yet sticking through his right arm above the elbow. Red Wolf could not follow him, but he had captured a dropped lance, which he was now somewhat boastfully exhibiting.
"Boy go now," said Tetzcatl. "Tell Castro, Texans gone to the fort."
"No! no!" replied Red Wolf. "Big Knife say wait. Tetzcatl wait.
Hide in bushes."
No further persuasion was attempted by the old Tlascalan, although he did not conceal his preference for being without young company.
"Come," said Red Wolf. "No stay. Heap eat. Where water?"
That seemed a useless question to be asked in such a place, but there were secrets of the chaparral which were unknown to the red men of the plains. This was not their hunting-ground and never had been so.
Moreover, there had been local changes and wide bush-growths during the years which had elapsed since the tribes of the Guadalupe and Nueces River country had been exterminated.
Less than half an hour of brisk riding brought Tetzcatl and his companion to the hiding-place of one of those secrets of the chaparral.
"Whoop!" burst from Red Wolf. "Old lodge. Heap water. Great medicine. Tetzcatl white head. Know heap!"
Except for its being there, unknown to almost everybody, there was nothing to be seen that could be called remarkable. There were some tumbling walls of _adobe_, or sunburned brick, of no great extent or number, near the margin of a bright-looking pond. There might be two acres of water, but no rill could be seen running into it. One that ran out, feebly, on the farther side, shortly disappeared in the sandy soil. Red Wolf knew, for he at once rode to investigate.
"Ugh!" he exclaimed, when he reached the bit of marsh where the tiny rivulet ended. "Dead water."
A deer sprang out of a covert at the border of the marsh, but Red Wolf"s bow had been all the while in his hand, ready for instant use.
The bowstring tw.a.n.ged, the arrow sped, and in a moment more a thrust of a lance followed.
"Heap meat," said the young hunter, as he sprang to the ground and tethered his mustang.
He did not have to cut up his game unaided. Tetzcatl came to join him with his heavy _machete_ already out, and he proved himself an expert butcher.
"Good!" said Red Wolf. "Where go now? Heap fire tell Comanche."
"Come," said Tetzcatl, slinging the venison across his mule, but he said no more about what he intended doing.
They rode back to the pond and around it to the southerly side. Here, scattered over several acres of open, gra.s.sy ground, were the ruins, none of them more than one-story buildings. At one place, near the middle of them, there remained almost a complete house, roofed over.
Into this, leaving his mule at the door, Tetzcatl led the way. On the floor in a corner smouldered the embers of a fire, suggesting that he had been there before, on that very day. Fragments of dry wood lay near, and were at once thrown on to make a blaze, in spite of the remonstrances of Red Wolf.
"Smoke tell Comanche," he said, as the blue vapor began to curl out at an opening in the shattered roof.
"No!" replied Tetzcatl. "Small smoke. Much wind. Comanches are a great way off."
Red Wolf had to give it up, and he was very ready to enjoy broiled venison.
The best part of his unexpected good luck, however, was the water. The deer had been a sudden arrival truly, but deer were plentiful in Texas in those days. They were to be met with at any time, but a pond in a desert was quite another affair.
The riding and the fighting and the after-lurking among the bushes had consumed the day. The sun was going down when the two cooks in the _adobe_ turned away from their dinner and carefully covered their fire-embers. The mule and the mustang had also been doing very well upon the gra.s.s of the clearing. Everything was peaceful, even comfortable, therefore, when Red Wolf remarked to Tetzcatl, "Dark come.
Heap sleep. Ugh!"
"_Bueno!_" he replied. "Boy sleep. Old man too old."
With thorough-going Indian caution, however, the son of Castro did not think of sleeping in any house, to be found there, perhaps, by his enemies. He took his pony with him and went in among the bushes. Then he tied the sorrel securely, but left him to whatever might be coming.
As for himself, no other young wolf hunted for a more perfect cover before consenting to shut his eyes. Then, indeed, it was quickly proved that the toughest kind of red Indian boy could be completely tired out.