CHAPTER XVIII.

OUT AND AWAY.

At this same instant a bang on the oak from a large pistol butt--so

high up that it revealed it was held in the hand of a giant or a man on

horseback, who had his reasons for not dismounting--fairly shook the

massive door.

"Landlord, go challenge the newcomer," said Oliver.

Tío Camote, however reluctant, was forced to obey. A second blow

quickened his step, and he even smiled as if the peculiarity of its

stroke were a well-known signal. He, therefore, opened the trap pretty

trustfully.

A long hooknose, scarred in the middle, and a pair of gleaming eyes in

a rather bloated face appeared at the little square hole.

"It is I, the captain," said a harsh voice with a shrill twang,

testily. "We have brushed the brown skins afar, and we want

refreshment."

"The captain," cried Sweet Potato, falling back.

"Well," said Oliver, "who's the captain?"

"Pedrillo! El Manco!" breathed the innkeeper, in awe.

"Speak up, you ass!"

"Captain Pedrillo el Manco," repeated the bar tender.

"Oh, One-leg Pete," said the hunter, with as much scorn as they

displayed apprehension and respect. "Don't let me see e'en a one of ye

touch that door."

He turned to Gladsden and the young Mexican, who was pale again, but

courageous.

"You hev seen that the 'Paches even kin spare a young woman of beauty

when their greed is keen. But, I tell 'ee, sir, I would rather all was

back where we began to play the game, and yon helpless redskin up in

arms afore us, than have this poor lady in the power of that villain

who waits without, and is likely to wait till doomsday before I let

him in. He's cruel, merciless, wuss than a Digger Injin, and words can

paint no blacker! But he is a fool! He thinks he and his herd have

driven away the Poison Hatchets when their first chief is here! If the

Injin will forgive this humiliation, which I doubt, hang me but I'll

cut his thongs, set him on his feet agen, and we'll charge this scum of

the brimstone pot between us and the Apaches."

"First, let those greasers know that if they breathe a signal to their

kindred thieves, you will silence the spokesman forever."

"One moment," said Gladsden. "This captain with the seared hooknose?

Tell me more of him. In the same way that this young lady's face called

up the figures of the past most sweet in my memory, that peculiar phiz

reminded me of the most disagreeable scoundrel I ever came athwart the

foot of. What's he like?"

"A hardened man-devil. He lost a leg, so that he always sticks in the

saddle."

"A leg gone! How, how?"

"Chawed off by an alligator in some Texan _bieyoo_ (bayou), so they

give out."

"I have it! It is an old acquaintance! Only, he lost his leg by a shark

bite, I presume."

"All's one. Well, if you ever knew him, then you knew the biggest

scamp unhung! And now keep those cowards silent. If we do not answer

the bandit, he will think Camote was pushed forward as a decoy by some

Apaches within hyar, and will be dumfounded."

After a pause the knocking at the door of the ranch was resumed, but as

in one of the pauses, the angry solicitor of admission heard the "hee,

hee, ha, yah," of an Indian song, due to the imitative skill of Oregon

Oliver, he withdrew.

Taking advantage of this lull in the attack on the portals, the hunter

went back to the prostrate Indian chief, who had been chewing a bitter

cud, and squatted down on his hams in the Indian mode, at his head.

"Now, then, Cat, what have you got on your notched stick (record) to

tell off?"

The Apache looked up out of his indifferent and impassible demeanour.

"The white ranger is a great chief," said he. "Not many would have

snatched the pearl from among the head chiefs of the Poison Hatchets,

whose slightest blow is death. I say, he is a warrior. He has come to

hear me sing my death song; not to gabble to him like an old squaw. I

am ready to begin."

"Partly you're correct, chief. I am not come to chatter like the

mockingbird. But I prefer hearing your song of triumph to that of death

and mourning. Have you heard the voice of the wolf-with-the-leg-off at

the door of this mud lodge? Do you not know the voice of that dog, the

captain of Salteadores?"

"Yes, the Tiger Cat has killed many of the foxes that follow that

_ladrón_ (thief), by walking upon them!" answered the Apache

disdainfully.

"To the point, then. If I free you hand and foot, will you lend us your

hand to help us shake the ground clear of these varmint? I'll give you

a revolver to boot! And, more, you shall have one of these broken guns

(the repeating rifles which bend at the barrel end) which speaks all

one's fingers times hand-running, with ammunition to feed her up as

long as you run buffalo on the plains."

It was an enormous bribe. But the Apache was true to his wounded pride,

and his inveterate hatred of the whites.

"The warriors that swing the poison hatchets," he replied, "lie wait in

all the thickets around about the forest. In a little while they will

fall on the Spanish, and then they will hear their chief singing his

death song, mingled with their whoop of triumph."

"All right," said the other, rising. "I thought it neighbourly to give

you a chance. Sing away to your own pitch pipe."

He went over to Gladsden, who leant on the counter, whilst doña Perla,

on the other side of the room, contemplated the scene curiously. The

discovery that one of the strangers was the hero of her childhood's

romance, had filled her with complete confidence, and she thought no

more of prayer.

"Tiger Cat is a stubborn knot," said Oliver. "I can't squeeze anything

out'n him. He's never spared anyone, and when we quit this house I

propose to set fire to it over his head. He has burned many a Christian

alive, and it's sauce for the goose to roast him, too."

He said this so naturally that Gladsden knew he was not threatening

wantonly, and so firmly that he forbore to argue with him.

"I am quite right in saying that the Apaches will never leave this

place till they know the fate of their chief. They will soon attack

the robbers. When they close we will sally out, trust to luck to seize

three hosses for ourselves and the little doña, or to reach cover. At

the last moment, since Tío Camote has been false and useless to me, I

shall broach a cask or two, which will make a glorious bonfire, and the

Apaches will only have their chief in a _puchero_ (stew), with mezcal

sauce!"

Nature now clamoured for sleep and food. Oliver seemed able to do

without the former, but he never refused solid sustenance when

available, like all the wanderers whose life is an irregular

alternation of feasts and fasts.

Camote produced some sausage and corn cakes, as well as deer meat,

of which doña Perla partook. Gladsden and she dozed off, neither of

them heeding the continual popping of shots at long range between

the Apaches and the robbers. At about eleven o'clock, when the heat

was perceptible in the closed-in room without large windows or other

proper vent than the narrow smoke hole aloft, Oliver made a sign for

attention. The landlord was eating and drinking noisily near the Apache

prisoner, tantalising him with all a coward's cruelty. His two aids

had disappeared under the counter, asleep deeply, if their mellifluous

nasal breathing afforded a sure indication.

At the back of the ranch there was audible a scratching at the ground.

Some living thing was trying to burrow into the house. At the same time

the fusillade of the Indians assumed a more regular form. Under cover

of the guns the bowmen had advanced, and the twang of the string once

or twice came to the ear to prove that they had pushed on near the

dwelling.

It was provoking to see nothing of the skirmish, protracted

vexatiously, like all such warfare.

Suddenly Oliver took up a large empty cask and placed it on the counter.

"Keep watch thar, whar the critter is boring, and blow out the brains

of any head that presents itself, for we have none but enemies hyar."

He jumped on the counter, clambered upon the barrels, and with his

hunting knife proceeded to make a gap in the roof. When the sky

appeared there, he enlarged the hole and venturesomely pulled himself

up through it, crawling down on the flat roof. It was composed of sods,

among which stray seeds had sprouted.

All the field, hitherto one of conjecture, was exposed to his

experienced view. After one sweep of his vision, he came down to the

floor, and relieved Gladsden's anxiety which had sprung up the moment

he was left entirely alone for the first time since they quitted El

Paso.

"They are all at hide-and-seek," he said, with a chuckle. "They do not

make the bark fly (cut the skin) once in a twenty shoots! It's tie

and tie in such shooting--why did their pap trust them with firearms?

Ne'erless, the 'Pach air working to get into the ranch, and they will

rush the greasers back. One-leg has ridden off and hidden, I guess. I

can't see his hoss nowhar. As for the cattle of the Ingins, they are

in two caballadoes--one yonder a good piece, and t'other nearer at

hand. We kin strike for them with some chance. There's on'y young men

guarding them--and we're good for six a piece _sich!_ Wrap the little

señorita up thick, mind, so she may not be _hurted_ by a flying bullet,

and we'll shine out galorious when we make our break out. When I say

'Out!' out we git!"

While the Englishman arranged the blankets and buffalo hides of the

fallen Apaches as bucklers about doña Perla, the hunter went to the

back of the room where the scratching had changed to the scooping out

of earth; a piece of stone had been substituted for the scalp knife.

Oliver, though time was so precious, waited patiently at the edge

of the floor and walls. At last, the earth of the former moved as

if a mole was making its tunnel, and then a brown hand emerged from

the crumbling clods of packed mud. On that hand the hunter's knife

descended and severed two fingers as it was instantly withdrawn. The

savage had the immense self-control not to utter a sound of pain, in

shame at having put his hand so incautiously into the trap.

"He will trouble no more," said Oliver, wiping the knife on the leg of

Uncle Potato's breeches as the nearest rag. "At least not before we

will git out of the way to receive him."

He went across the room, and, this time, removing the barricade, boldly

applied his eye to the wicket.

"Now's the time," said he, instantly.

In fact a volley and the hustling of darts and arrows passed the very

door, followed by a rush of softly shod feet as the Apaches at last

charged the Mexicans.

"Out!" shouted Oliver, flinging the door open. "And you come, too,

unless you like to be boiled in your own spirits."

For with one kick beating in a full cask, he fired the pouring alcohol

with the nearest lamp, and pushed Gladsden and the daughter of don

Benito out of the door. A vast sheet of flame rose in their rear,

and while Camote leaped through it, a fearful explosion in that

circumscribed apartment denoted that another cask had burst, and was

contributing to the flames. The innkeeper's assistants were unable to

pass the burning fluid, and their appeals for help made the pinioned

warrior smile with fiendish glee.

He began his death song in a strong voice, though the blazing liquor,

red, violet, and blue, gradually rolled towards him in his helpless

state, with little or no smoke to muffle the rays.

Through half a dozen stragglers the three fugitives made their way,

the hunter literally bearing them down before his rush, whilst the

Englishman was as little impeded by half carrying the Mexican maiden

on his left arm. However, the cluster of horses was reached, held in

the usual manner by all the bridles being passed over one, which two

youthful warriors, who had probably never fleshed the scalping knife,

were chafing at being detained there to hold. Besides them a stalwart

Indian, whose flattened features hinted at the admixture of African

blood, was on guard. Luckily he had fired all but his last shot in

the skirmishing, and he had only one arrow left in hand. With that he

sprang forward to meet the flying trio, using it as a stabbing weapon.

Generously renouncing the use of his firearms, with that sometimes

imprudent pride of the Caucasian who loves to win at fair play, the

hunter flew at him with merely his own steel blade.

Whilst Gladsden smote the two striplings to the right and left, and was

choosing two of the startled and frightened horses for the girl and

himself, Oliver was engaged in a terrible, deadly, and pitiless combat

with his sworn enemy. They had grappled one another with veritable

hooks of steel, and sought mutually to overthrow and stab. Their eyes

flashed fire, they wasted their breath in taunts and revelations of the

many deeds of mischief and death which they had respectively wrought

among their opposing people, till their bated breath came but feebly

through their grinding teeth. But for their speech in broken accents,

they were scarcely human--mere wild beasts bent on rending and tearing

one another till "the heart was bare."

"Oh, you air Mr. Rough-on-the-Herdsman, you air?" hissed Oregon Oliver,

tightening a hug which the grizzly would not have disdained to borrow.

"Well, Mr. Death-to-the-Cowboys, how like you that? You've 'rubbed out'

three solitary trappers, ha' you? How's that for a rub?--And that,

and, still again, that!" And hurling the wretch to the earth under the

curveting mustangs' unshod hoofs, he nearly beat the last breath out

of his wretched and bleeding body. In a moment he rose, this time not

ashamed to tear away the reeking scalp of the Indian who had in his

boasts touched on a painful chord.

"I bet my life," muttered he, seizing a horse by the nostrils, and

dragging his head down irresistibly, "that señor Murder-the-Vaqueros

will wipe out no more lone trappers, durn his carcass--would he were

roasting alongside his chief! Innyhow, he can't fall, scalpless, in

among his brethren in the happy hunting grounds!"

All three were mounted now, a task which would have been far more

difficult only for the horses which Mr. Gladsden had selected being

by chance stolen from the Mexicans, and, hence, rather pleased than

alarmed at instinctively recognising hands more familiar than their

last masters'.

The two Apache boys were crawling away for refuge in the corral cactus;

thence to recover from the blows, and hurl insults and stones.

In a glance, Oliver saw their only chance was to run the gauntlet

between the burning house and those of the Apache's rearguard, who had

already stopped, ceased to pepper the hidden bandits, and looked back

towards the horses in such wild agitation.

"_Hep-la!_" cried Oliver to the herd, applying his heavy hand to the

rump of the two or three that were within reach, "And away! _'Vantay!_

(advance) Git!"

The horses preceded the three, but the latter's mounts participated

in the fever of escape, all the more as the heat, the smell, and the

flames of the Green Ranch had struck their olfactory and visual organs

with that terrifying influence of fire upon the equine race.

"Let 'em rip!" cried the hunter; "They'll not shoot in the midst, lest

they hurt a hoss. They're outrageous fond of horses, these 'Pach!"

As the furious cavalcade trampled by the Ranch door, the Englishman

fired a hurried shot within. Immediately, the chant of the Apache,

which was audible above the crackling and hissing of the flames, ceased

short.

"You are a good old hoss!" ejaculated Oliver, who divined the humanity

which prompted the merciful bullet, though incapable of such foolish

leniency, or, at least, inexcusable waste of ammunition himself. "He

desarved all he was gitting; but, na'theless, it's better you had it

off your conscience. He's a green gilly," he added, under his breath,

eyeing his pupil approvingly; "but for sand--you bet thar's a heap of

sand, thar. If it war writing paper from hyar to his sprouting ground,

jest take him up by the heel and sprinkle him out over the hull spread,

and there'd be enough to cover an old bull on the last squar' foot!

He's made of grit, he is _that!_"

On the roof of the building they had perceived the blanched faces of

the two bartenders. There they lay, after having been pursued up the

gap in the ceiling by the fiery tongues, afraid to move, and so attract

the Apache's view.

As for Camote, he had vanished into a nook no doubt planned for some

such eventuality, deep enough to require digging out.

As soon as the fugitives were surely out of range, first of the Apaches

and, then, of the bandits, sufficiently engaged by the latter to bestow

no more than a couple of random shots on the adventurers, they began to

pull rein hard. While actually looking back, there was nothing to see

but the column of flame and blue smoke from the Green Ranch. But after

having resumed their course, they heard a dull boom, like a cannon

report, of which the muzzle was in a cave.

"The heavy mud roof has fallen in," remarked Oliver; "the chiefs scalp

is safe, and the spreeing den of the Sonora bandoleros will never house

them no more."

When the horses they rode were cured of their panic by kindly

"horse-talk" of which the hunter was profuse, and when the rattle of

the stampeded troop had died away utterly, the commonly dense stillness

of the wilderness fell upon all around.

"Those niggers will go on yelling and pelting one another till their

powder gives out," remarked Oliver. "There'll be scarcely half a dozen

strokes to count, but, however, blood has been spilt, and so while they

are scrimmaging we can canter on."

Thus reassured, doña Perla smiled again. In a few words she acquainted

the hunter with such landmarks around her father's estate as to enable

him to direct their course as straight as the _mottes_ or "islands"

of woodland in the prairie permitted. But if the Mexican lady and the

Englishman argued well of the profound solitude, the Oregonian did not

lay aside his watchfulness. Leading the van, three horse lengths, his

rifle across the saddlebow, bent forward so that the animal's head

shielded his bosom, and his eyes peered over the ears, he retained all

that wariness demanded in Northern Mexico, where the axiom reigns:

_Homo homine lupus_, not to be translated as it was done by an

excellent trapper friend of the author's, a squawman who had wedded an

Indian woman and so became an ally of the tribe:--"Don't feed _loups_

(wolves) with hominy," but, "Man is a devouring wolf to his brother."