Sunset Pass; or, Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land by Charles King (well read books TXT) 📗

breastwork keeping vigilant watch, though his teeth chattered despite his best efforts, and his eyes were doubtless bulging out of their sockets.

"You mustn't be sitting here all in the dark," said Pike. "Keep up a little fire, Ned, my boy. It's so far back and so far up the hill that the Indians cannot possibly see the light it may make even were they to come around to the east side of the mountain. They won't to-night, though. They've found papa's stock of whiskey and brandy and are already half drunk. They'll lie around there all night long and never come hunting for us until after sunrise to-morrow, if they do then. We'll just have fun with these fellows until the cavalry come from Verde, as come they will, I haven't a doubt, now that papa has found that he was cut off and has ridden back on the trail to meet and hurry the troops. He knows well that you and Jim and I could take care of Nellie and stand off these beggars until he could reach us. Now, light the lantern and stow it in that niche yonder. And you, Kate, lie down and cover yourself and the children with blankets. I'm going out where I can watch what they're doing."

So saying, Pike took his rifle and the field glasses and, after a word with Jim, passed around to the east front of the ledge. It was too dark to enable him to venture down the bowlders, or to attempt to climb again to the top of the rock, but he found a spot among the stunted trees from which he could just see the back part of the baggage wagon and the Apaches flitting about it in the light of their fire. Leveling his glasses he could make out that several of the Indians were grouped about some object in the road, and presently one or two came running to the spot with buckets of water which they dashed over a prostrate form. It was Manuelito, who had probably fainted dead away.

Then, as the Mexican apparently began to recover his senses, he was lifted roughly from the ground and borne, moaning and feebly struggling, towards the wagon. Into this he was tossed head foremost, so that only his feet and legs were visible to the anxious watcher up the hill. Securely bound, and already half dead from the tortures inflicted on him, unable to move hand or foot, the poor wretch lay there, alternately praying and weeping. What the next move of the Apaches would be was not long a matter of doubt. The whole band, with the exception of their sentinels, were now dancing and leaping about their captive, singing some devil-inspired chant, which occasionally gave place to yells of triumph. Presently the younger men began piling up wood under the back of the wagon—under the Mexican's manacled feet; and then brands and embers were thrust underneath. Pike turned sick with horror and helplessness at the sight, for he knew instantly what it meant. The wagon was to be the wretched Manuelito's funeral pyre. They meant to burn him to death by inches. Suddenly a bright flame leaped up from the bottom of the stack of fuel; broader, brighter, fiercer it grew until it lapped up over the floor of the wagon. A scream of agony rang through the Pass, answered by jeering laughter and fiendish yells. The next minute the whole band were circling round the wagon in a wild war-dance; their yells, their savage song, completely drowned the shrieks of the tortured man. The whole wagon was soon a mass of flames, and more fuel was added. Presently the rear axle came down with a crash, sending showers of sparks whirling through the night air, and Pike turned away faint and trembling.

Another instant, however, and every faculty was on the alert, every nerve strung to its highest tension, and the old soldier sprang back to the cave in answer to Jim's call.

"Look!" whispered the negro. "Look down there! There's some one moving among those rocks."

CHAPTER VII. PIKE'S STRANGE DREAM.

Kneeling behind their rocky barrier the two men silently peered into the darkness down the hill. The great ledge of rock under which they were hiding concealed from their view the burning fires of the Indians down in the roadway to the east. But the reflection of the fire could be plainly seen on the rocks and trees on the north side of the Pass. Here and there stray beams of light shot through the firs and cedars and stunted oaks that lay below them among the bowlders; and somewhere down among these little trees, watchful Jim declared that he had seen something white moving cautiously and stealthily to and fro. Pike closely questioned him, whispering his inquiries so as not to catch the ears of Kate or the children, but Jim stoutly declared that he could not be mistaken. He had marked it twice, moving from place to place, before he had quit his post and called to the corporal to come and verify for himself what he was sure he had seen. For a few moments Pike thought that it might be the Apache sentinel who had, possibly, left his position on the little hill across the road, and was seeking on his own account some clue to the whereabouts of the fugitives from the camp. Pike had seen one or two Indians running up the road to where the sentinel was stationed in order to give him some of the plunder which they had taken from the wagon, and it was now so dark that he could no longer see objects out on the plain, and, as he could hear approaching horsemen just as well on this side of the road as on that, it was quite possible that this Indian was the cause of Jim's warning.

Several minutes passed without either of them seeing anything. Then suddenly Jim's hand was placed on the corporal's arm, and in a low, tremulous voice he whispered: "Look! Look!"

Following with his eyes the direction indicated by Jim's hand, Pike could just see, probably two hundred or two hundred and fifty yards away down the hillside, something dirty white in color, very slowly and very stealthily creeping from one bowlder to another. The tops and crests of the trees and bowlders, as has been said, were tinged by the light of the fires still burning down in the roadway. The Indian yells were gradually ceasing as, one after another, seemingly overcome by the liquor that they had been drinking, they subsided into silence. A number of them, however, still kept up their monotonous dance, varied every now and then by a yell of triumph; but the uproar and racket was not to be compared with what had been going on during the torture to which Manuelito had been subjected before they had mercifully, though most horribly, put an end to his sufferings.

Nothing but the embers of the wagon and the unconsumed iron work, of course, now remained in the road. Pike judged too that the ambulance had been burned, and that nothing remained of that. But all thought as to what was going on among the Indians in the Pass was now of little account as compared with the immediate presence of this object below him. Could it be one of the Apaches? Could it be the sentinel from the other side? Its stealthy movements and the noiseless way in which it seemed to flit from rock to rock gave color to his supposition, and yet it appeared unnatural to Pike that any one of the Indians should separate himself from his comrades and go on a still hunt in the dead of the night for traces of their hated foes.

"I cannot see it now," whispered Jim. "Where is he gone?"

"Behind that big rock that you see touched by the firelight down yonder. Our trail is just about half way. Look! There it is again! Nearer, too, by fifty yards. I wish he'd get on top of one of those bowlders where the light would strike him. Then we might make him out. By Jove! He's coming up the hill. Whatever you do, don't fire. I'll tend to him."

With straining eyes they watched the strange, stealthy approach of the mysterious object. Every now and then it would totally disappear from sight and then, a moment or two afterwards, could again be dimly seen, crouching along beside some big rock or emerging behind the thick branches of some stunted tree. Nearer it came until Pike was sure it must have reached the "trail" they had made in their journeys up and down the hill.

"I never saw an Apache that could move about in the dark as quickly as that fellow. Jim, by Jimminy, I'll bet it's no Indian at all!"

"What is it, then?" muttered Jim, whose teeth would chatter a little. He had all a darkey's dread of "spooks" and was more afraid of a possible ghost than an actual Tonto.

"That's a lynx or a wild-cat, man! They have a dingy white coat to their backs, in places at least, and you've only stirred up some mighty small game. See here, Jim, you're getting nervous. I'll have to call Ned out here with his little Ballard to take your place if you are going to—There! What did I tell you?"

A heap of fresh fuel—probably dry cedar boughs—had just been thrown on the coals by some of the determined dancers down in the road and a broad glare of firelight illumined the Pass. Again the rocks and trees down in front of the cave were brilliantly tinged, and, as though determined to have a good look at these strange "goings on," there suddenly leaped from the darkness and appeared in view upon the flat top of one of the biggest bowlders a little four-footed creature gazing with glowing eyes upon the scene below.

"There's your Indian, James, my boy," softly laughed Pike and, turning, he called back into the cave:

"Ned, are you asleep?"

"No," was the prompt answer. "Do you want me, Pike?"

"Come here and I'll show you a pretty shot for your Ballard."

Ned was at his side in an instant, bringing his little rifle with him, and the old soldier pointed down the hill.

"That's what Jim took for an Apache," he said.