CHAPTER XI.
THE CHARGE OF THE LANCERS.
Days that go by with nothing in them but steady riding,buffalo-killing, and undisturbed camps at the end of each day may bevery pleasant but they are not exciting. As Colonel Bowie remarked tohis men, however,--
"A squad like ours, mounted as we are, can get ahead faster than a bigband like Great Bear's. They'll send scouting-parties ahead, but wecan keep out of their way. We're making first-rate time."
So they were, and they were also carefully keeping their horses in goodcondition for any required run. They carried no baggage, and they hadnow, they thought, a long "start" ahead of their Comanche pursuers.
The most silent rider among them, not excepting Castro himself, was RedWolf, and it was not altogether because he was a boy. The fact wasthat he had been seeing and hearing a great deal, and that he was fullto bursting with the spirit of adventure which all the while spoke outin the talk of the Texans.
They told wild stories of old war-paths; of fights of every kind, andof visits to cities and towns of the white men. They talked, too,about gold and silver and what could be done with money, so that theyoung Lipan grew more and more interested in an idea he never hadbefore,--the idea of riches. It did not yet take complete shape in hismind, excepting in one form, given by Big Knife, the hero. It was whathe said about the great gun in the plaza of the Alamo, and the money itwould cost to kill Mexicans with that and the other cannon. The "heapguns" themselves had cost a great deal of money. In that shape, oreven in the shape of rifles or horses, Red Wolf could now understand itfairly well. He thought of the bags in the hole in the _adobe_ wall,but these, he believed, belonged to Big Knife and the Texans. Theycould not be the property of a Lipan boy, and he never thought of sucha thing for a moment. Very vaguely, moreover, he had gathered thatthis present war-party expected to find gold and silver and to bring itback with them, after killing enemies and winning glory in fights.
It was all new and it was all wonderful, but there was no use intalking about it, so he kept still and was inclined to ride ahead, orelse to linger some distance behind his party.
As yet there had been no sign of any pursuers near them, but toward theclose of one long, bright day Red Wolf had fallen so far behind that hewas almost out of sight of his pale-face friends.
The swift mustang under him was in fine condition. So very well did hefeel that he was restive, and a deer that sprang out of a covert ofhazel-bushes as he was going by made him jump and throw up his heels.Not that he was at all afraid of a deer, but that it was curious,perhaps, to find himself carrying a hunter who would not so much assend an arrow after such capital game.
"Ugh!" exclaimed Red Wolf, and it came out sharply, from utter surprise.
In his sudden prancing his pony had wheeled around, and there, comingover a rise of ground not two hundred yards away, rode three Comanches.The instant they were discovered they uttered fierce whoops and dashedforward.
"Wh-oo-p!" yelled the young Lipan, lashing his too spirited pony to arun. "Comanche dog! Red Wolf!"
There was no more to be said just then, however. The warm wind fromthe south seemed to whistle past him. Far to the right and far to theleft yet other war-whoops were sounding. Not the whole band of GreatBear, he thought, but a sufficient number of their best mounted bravesto make trouble for Bowie and his men.
There is no such thing as mistaking a war-whoop for any other sound,and now Red Wolf exclaimed "Ugh!" again in still greater astonishment.He knew that there was no bugle among the Texans with Big Knife, but hehad heard the sound of one at the fort and afterwards. "Heap whistle"would have been a good translation of his Lipan word for bugle music,and he uttered it loudly. It came from the left, and it was faint atfirst, but in a few moments it was repeated more sonorously, and hewheeled his mustang in that direction.
At that very moment Castro himself, riding at the head of the squad,lifted his left hand as if pointing and exclaimed,--
"Ugh! Big Knife hear! Mexicans!"
"It's a cavalry bugle, colonel!" shouted Jim Cheyne. "I can ketch it.Thar it comes ag'in----"
"Wheel to the right! Gallop!" replied Bowie. "It's Bravo's lancers.They are this side of the Rio! Now, boys, the chief was just saying wewere only a half-hour's ride from the hacienda. His Lipans are there."
Were they? It is not always that a man can give the whereabouts ofother men from whom he has been several days absent. A ride of half anhour is also to be measured by the speed of a horse, rather than byfeet and inches. Very near them, therefore, if the distance were thatof a swift horse on a run, a mule and his rider had halted on thenortherly bank of a broad and very muddy river.
Directly across the river, on a low bluff of seemingly bare, sandyground, there was a long range of low-built houses, part of themsurrounded by a wall. They were altogether like a vast number of otherMexican-Spanish _haciendas_, or head-quarters of important countryestates. If this, however, were the Hacienda Dolores, and if Castro'sLipans were there, they had raised over the largest of the _adobe_structures the eagle flag of Mexico. They had stationed uniformedsentinels here and there, and they had picketed horses, with saddlesand military trappings, in long rows near at hand.
"Tetzcatl counts more than four hundred," said the man on the mule."The Lipans are safe, but the Mexicans must not catch Bowie."
He spoke in Spanish and his voice was quiet enough, but his face wasall one quiver of rage and hate as he stared across the river. What ifhis entire plan was to be broken up and his red and white alliesdestroyed by this unexpected activity of his Mexican enemies? It was,moreover, a dangerous place of waiting for a solitary old man, to whomno quarter would be given if he were found there by Mexican soldiers.
"Too long! Too long!" he exclaimed. "They ought to be here. It istime!"
At that moment the mule under him stretched his neck and head to sendforth a loud and seemingly uncalled-for bray. He had an abundance ofears, but what could he have heard? His white-headed master at firstheard nothing at all, but then he drove his spurs into the sides of histrumpeting beast in a way that cut off braying.
"Bowie!" he shouted. "Running. He is trapped by Bravo's men!"
There, indeed, racing as if for life, were the six Texans and Castro,but where was their young Lipan scout, and what was he doing?
Castro was asking that question, and so was the colonel, only themoment before, but now they pulled in their horses to look across theriver, in blank dismay, at the flag over the hacienda.
"They've got us this time, colonel!" roared a broad-chested ranger."Our call has come. Let's die game!"
"You bet we will," said Joe, "but we ain't dead yit. Something'sa-goin' on away back yonder. I heard an Injin yell sure's you live."
If he and his friends had not been running away so fast they might haveheard a number of Indians yell.
Red Wolf had ridden toward the bugle, not away from it. Hardly threeminutes of so swift a run had been required to bring him out in fullview of a strong party of mounted men in the brilliant uniform of theMexican regular lancers. It was just as they obeyed the musical orderto go forward at a charging gait. They were splendid horsemen and theymoved together in perfect array, but it was not to make a dash upon oneIndian boy. They had some reasons for expecting an encounter with theband of Lipans which had quartered, during several days, in and aroundthe deserted hacienda. Here these were now, they thought, apparentlyready to be pounced upon and overwhelmed, but this nearest brave uponthe mustang showed no sign of hostility. On the contrary, he pulledin, almost halted, and waved his hand to them before pointing back, asif he would say,--
"Your enemies and mine are there. Be ready for them."
Swift orders rang along the charging column, but the solitary Indianwheeled out of their way, still making friendly signs, while over theswells of the prairie came the wild riders of whom he was evidentlytelling.
To him no more attention could be given just then, for the
re were moreComanches arriving than Bowie had believed at all likely. They hadtravelled faster and in better condition than he had calculated, andfully a third of Great Bear's warriors were within reaching distance.
It was a tremendous surprise all around. The fast-gathering braves hadexpected to close in upon a mere handful of tired-out Texans. Thelancers had counted upon a brush with a small war-party of Lipans.Here the two forces were, however, face to face, altogether too near toescape a collision, unless one side or both should lose courage and runaway.
Red Wolf had lashed his mustang to its best speed in wheeling frombetween the combatants, and he barely succeeded, for the Comanches werecareering in various directions. It was not their custom to charge inclose column.
"Ugh!" said the boy warrior. "Heap fool Comanche. See Great Bear."
The great war-chief was indeed among his men, as cool as ever in spiteof the surprise. He had his best braves with him, and they greatlyoutnumbered the Mexicans. The latter, indeed, rather than the red men,had stumbled into a bad place. They were brave enough, but theComanches have been called by army officers "the best light cavalry inthe world." Not one of them turned to follow Red Wolf any farther, andhe did not wait to be followed. He looked behind him only to catch afleeting view of a terribly confused skirmish. Both sides carriedlances. At close quarters, the bows and arrows of the red men wereeven better weapons than were such firearms as were carried by thecavalry. It certainly took less time to load a bow-string than it didto put a charge into a horse-pistol or a carbine.
The Mexicans were fighting well, Red Wolf could take note of that.What he did not see was the fact that they were going down very fastand that more Comanches were arriving. The one idea in his mind was toovertake his friends.
The river! The great, muddy Rio Grande! Here it was, with not a signof Colonel Bowie's party upon its desolate bank.
Red Wolf halted in something like dismay, but it was no time forhesitation. His friends could not have gone down southward. Theirerrand would lead them up the river. He must hunt for them in thatdirection. Whether he should ever reach them or not was a difficultquestion, as his first glance across the river told him. It was not somuch the flag on the hacienda. He was not afraid of a flag. But theriver was shallow and fordable at this point, and a party of lancershad already made its way well out from the farther shore. They, aswell as he, could hear the rattling reports and the fierce whoopingfrom the battle that was going on, and they were making as much hasteas the muddy bottom permitted. They uttered loud shouts when theycaught sight of the one "brave" on the bank, and they fired shot aftershot at him, but he was out of range of the short, smooth-bore carbinesthey were firing. He answered them with a yell of derision and rode on.
"Ugh!" he said. "Heap Mexican! All lose hair. Great Bear come."
Even a Lipan boy could feel more exultation than anything else over theidea that one enemy of his tribe was doing much harm to another. As anIndian, moreover, he could be proud of the prowess of a chief likeGreat Bear, almost as great a man, in his estimation, as Big Knife oras Castro.
It was a hot skirmish, but it was a short one. Half the lancers weredown, but their charge had carried them through the unsteady swarm oftheir enemies. All that were left were keeping well together and weregalloping toward the river, followed by flights of arrows. They wouldhave been more closely followed by wild horsemen but for the fact thatthe Comanche ponies were at the end of a long, tiresome "push," whilethe animals of the cavalry were fresh. There was no such thing ascatching up with them, and they reached the bank just as their comradesfrom the opposite shore were wading out.
There were loud shouts of explanation. There were signals to and fromthe hacienda, but all that could be done was to recross the river.After all, Red Wolf had not won any glory, but his enemies had oncemore suffered severely in trying to get hold of him.
The Lost Gold of the Montezumas: A Story of the Alamo Page 11
