The Second Western Megapack

by Various Writers

  “I have no friendship with spies and traitors,” growled the Panther.

  “I serve my country in the way I think best,” said Urrea, “and you must remember that in our view you two are rebels and traitors.”

  “We don’t stab in the back,” said the Panther.

  Urrea flushed through his swarthy skin.

  “We will not argue the point any further,” he said, “but come at once to the business before us. First, I will admit several things. Your rescue of the prisoners was very clever. Also you beat us off last night, but I now have a hundred men with me and we have plenty of arms. We are bound to take you sooner or later.”

  “Then why talk to us about it?” said the Panther.

  “Because I wish to save bloodshed.”

  “Wa’al, then, what do you have to say?”

  “Give us the man, Roylston, and the rest of you can go free.”

  “Why are you so anxious to have Roylston?”

  Ned eagerly awaited the answer. It was obvious that Roylston had rather minimized his own importance. Urrea flicked the mane of his mustang with a small whip and replied:

  “Our President and General, the illustrious Santa Anna, is extremely anxious to see him. Secrets of state are not for me. I merely seek to do my work.”

  “Then you take this from me,” said the Panther, a blunt frontiersman, “my comrades an’ me ain’t buyin’ our lives at the price of nobody else’s.”

  “You feel that way about it, do you?”

  “That’s just the way we feel, and I want to say, too, that I wouldn’t take the word of either you or your Santa Anna. If we was to give up Mr. Roylston—which we don’t dream of doin’—you’d be after us as hot an’ strong as ever.”

  Urrea’s swarthy cheeks flushed again.

  “I shall not notice your insults,” he said. “They are beneath me. I am a Mexican officer and gentleman, and you are mere riders of the plains.”

  “All the same,” said the Panther grimly, “if you are goin’ to talk you have to talk with us.”

  “That is true,” said Urrea lightly, having regained complete control of his temper. “In war one cannot choose his enemies. I make you the proposition once more. Give us Roylston and go. If you do not accept we shall nevertheless take him and all of you who do not fall first. Remember that you are rebels and traitors and that you will surely be shot or hanged.”

  “I don’t remember any of them things,” said the Panther grimly. “What I do remember is that we are Texans fightin’ fur our rights. To hang a man you’ve first got to catch him, an’ to shoot him you’ve first got to hit him. An’ since things are to be remembered, remember that what you are tryin’ to do to us we may first do to you. An’ with that I reckon we’ll bid you good day, Mr. Urrea.”

  Urrea bowed, but said nothing. He rode back toward his men, and Ned and the Panther returned to the grove. Roylston was much better that morning and he was able to stand, leaning against a tree.

  “May I ask the result of your conference,” he said.

  “There ain’t no secret about it,” replied the Panther, “but them Mexicans seem to be almighty fond of you, Mr. Roylston.”

  “In what way did they show it?”

  “Urrea said that all of us could go if we would give up you.”

  “And your answer?”

  The Panther leaned forward a little on his horse.

  “You know something about the Texans, don’t you, Mr. Roylston?”

  “I have had much opportunity to observe and study them.”

  “Well, they’ve got plenty of faults, but you haven’t heard of them buyin’ their lives at the price of a comrade’s, have you?”

  “I have not, but I wish to say, Mr. Palmer, that I’m sorry you returned this answer. I should gladly take my chances if the rest of you could go.”

  “We’d never think of it,” said the Panther. “Besides, them Mexicans wouldn’t keep their word. They’re goin’ to besiege us here, hopin’ maybe that starvation or thirst will make us give you up. Now the first thing for us to do is to get water for the horses.”

  This presented a problem, as the horses could not go down to the creek, owing to the steep high banks, but the Texans soon solved it. The cliff was soft and they quickly cut a smooth sloping path with their knives and hatchets. Old Jack was the first to walk down it and Ned led him. The horse hung back a little, but Ned patted his head and talked to him as a friend and equal. Under such persuasion Old Jack finally made the venture, and when he landed safely at the bottom he drank eagerly. Then the other two horses followed. Meanwhile two riflemen kept a keen watch up and down the creek bed for lurking Mexican sharpshooters.

  But the watering of the horses was finished without incident, and they were tethered once more in the thicket. Fields and another man kept a watch upon the plain, and the rest conferred under the trees. The Panther announced that by a great reduction of rations the food could be made to last two days longer. It was not a cheerful statement, as the Mexicans must know the scanty nature of their supplies, and would wait with all the patience of Indians.

  “All things, including starvation, come to him who waits long enough,” said Obed White soberly.

  “We’ll jest set the day through,” said the Panther, “an’ see what turns up.”

  But the day was quite peaceful. It was warmer than usual and bright with sunshine. The Mexicans appeared on some of the knolls, seemingly near in the thin clear air, but far enough away to be out of rifle shot, and began to play cards or loll on their serapes. Several went to sleep.

  “They mean to show us that they have all the time in the world,” said Ned to Will, “and that they are willing to wait until we fall like ripe apples into their hands.”

  “Do you think they will get us again?” asked Will anxiously.

  “I don’t. We’ve got food for two days and I believe that something will happen in our favor within that time. Do you notice, Will, that it’s beginning to cloud up again? In winter you can’t depend upon bright sunshine to last always. I think we’re going to have a dark night and it’s given me an idea.”

  “What is it?”

  “I won’t tell you, because it may amount to nothing. It all depends upon what kind of night we have.”

  The sun did not return. The clouds banked up more heavily, and in the afternoon Ned went to the Panther. They talked together earnestly, looking frequently at the skies, and the faces of both expressed satisfaction. Then they entered the bed of the creek and examined it critically. Will was watching them. When the two separated and Ned came toward him, he said:

  “I can guess your idea now. We mean to escape to-night up the bed of the creek.”

  Ned nodded.

  “Your first guess is good,” he said. “If the promise of a dark night keeps up we’re going to try.”

  The promise was fulfilled. The Mexicans made no hostile movement throughout the afternoon, but they maintained a rigid watch.

  When the sun had set and the thick night had come down the Panther told of the daring enterprise they were about to undertake, and all approved. By nine o’clock the darkness was complete, and the little band gathered at the point where the path was cut down into the bed of the creek. It was likely that Mexicans were on all sides of the grove, but the Panther did not believe that any of them, owing to bitter experience, would enter the cut made by the stream. But, as leader, he insisted upon the least possible noise. The greatest difficulty would be with the horses. Ned, at the head of Old Jack, led the way.

  Old Jack made the descent without slipping and in a few minutes the entire force stood upon the sand. They had made no sound that any one could have heard thirty yards away.

  “Now Mr. Roylston,” whispered the Panther to the merchant, “you get on Ned’s horse an’ we’ll be off.”

  Roylston sighed. It hurt his pride that he should be a burden, but he was a man of few words, and he mounted in silence. Then they moved slowly over the soft sand. They had loa
ded the extra rifles and muskets on the other two horses, but every man remained thoroughly armed and ready on the instant for any emergency.

  The Panther and Obed led. Just behind them came Ned and Will. They went very slowly in order to keep the horses’ feet from making any sound that listening Mexican sentinels might hear. They were fortunate in the sand, which was fine and soundless like a carpet. Ned thought that the Mexicans would not make any attempt upon the grove until late at night, and then only with skirmishers and snipers. Or they might not make any attempt at all, content with their cordon.

  But it was thrilling work as they crept along on the soft sand in the darkness and between the high banks. Ned felt a prickling of the blood. An incautious footstep or a stumble by one of the horses might bring the whole Mexican force down upon them at any moment. But there was no incautious footstep. Nor did any horse stumble. The silent procession moved on, passed the curve in the bed of the creek and continued its course.

  Urrea had surrounded the grove completely. His men were on both sides of the creek, but no sound came to them, and they had a healthy respect for the deadly Texan rifles. Their leader had certainly been wise in deciding to starve them out. Meanwhile the little procession in the bed of the creek increased its speed slightly.

  The Texans were now a full four hundred yards from the grove, and their confidence was rising.

  “If they don’t discover our absence until morning,” whispered Ned to Will, “we’ll surely get away.”

  “Then I hope they won’t discover it until then,” said Will fervently. “I don’t want to die in battle just now, nor do I want to be executed in Mexico for a rebel or for anything else.”

  They were now a full mile from the grove and the banks of the creek were decreasing in height. They did not rise anywhere more than three or four feet. But the water increased in depth and the margin of sand was narrower. The Panther called a halt and they listened. They heard no sound but the faint moaning of the wind among the dips and swells, and the long lone howl of a lonesome coyote.

  “We’ve slipped through ’em! By the great horn spoon, we’ve slipped through ’em!” said the Panther exultantly. “Now, boys, we’ll take to the water here to throw ’em off our track, when they try to follow it in the mornin’.”

  The creek was now about three feet in depth and flowing slowly like most streams in that region, but over a bed of hard sand, where the trace of a footstep would quickly vanish.

  “The water is likely to be cold,” said the Panther, “an’ if any fellow is afraid of it he can stay behind and consort with the Mexicans who don’t care much for water.”

  “Lead on, Macduff,” said Obed, “and there’s nobody who will cry ‘hold, enough.’”

  The Panther waded directly into the middle of the stream, and all the others followed. The horses, splashing the water, made some noise, but they were not so careful in that particular now since they had put a mile between themselves and the grove. In fact, the Panther urged them to greater speed, careless of the sounds, and they kept in the water for a full two miles further. Then they quit the stream at a point where the soil seemed least likely to leave traces of their footsteps, and stood for a little while upon the prairie, resting and shivering. Then they started at a rapid pace across the country, pushing for the Rio Grande until noon. Then Fields stalked and shot an antelope, with which they renewed their supply of food. In the afternoon it rained heavily, but by dark they reached the Rio Grande, across which they made a dangerous passage, as the waters had risen, and stood once more on the soil of Texas.

  “Thank God!” said Will.

  “Thank God!” repeated Ned.

  Then they looked for shelter, which all felt they must have.

  CHAPTER IV

  THE CABIN IN THE WOODS

  It proved a difficult matter to find shelter. All the members of the little group were wet and cold, and a bitter wind with snow began to whistle once more across the plain. But every one strove to be cheerful and the relief that their escape had brought was still a tonic to their spirits. Yet they were not without comment upon their condition.

  “I’ve seen hard winters in Maine,” said Obed White, “but there you were ready for them. Here it tricks you with warm sunshine and then with snow. You suffer from surprise.”

  “We’ve got to find a cabin,” said the Panther.

  “Why not make it a whole city with a fine big hotel right in the center of it?” said Obed. “Seems to me there’s about as much chance of one as the other.”

  “No, there ain’t,” said the Panther. “There ain’t no town, but there are huts. I’ve rid over this country for twenty year an’ I know somethin’ about it. There are four or five settlers’ cabins in the valleys of the creeks runnin’ down to the Rio Grande. I had a mighty good dinner at one of ’em once. They’re more’n likely to be abandoned now owin’ to the war an’ their exposed situation, but if the roofs haven’t fell in any of ’em is good enough for us.”

  “Then you lead on,” said Obed. “The quicker we get there the happier all of us will be.”

  “I may not lead straight, but I’ll get you there,” replied the Panther confidently.

  Roylston, at his own urgent insistence, dismounted and walked a little while. When he betook himself again to the back of Old Jack he spoke with quiet confidence.

  “I’m regaining my strength rapidly,” he said. “In a week or two I shall be as good as I ever was. Meanwhile my debt to you, already great, is accumulating.”

  The Panther laughed.

  “You don’t owe us nothin’,” he said. “Why, on this frontier it’s one man’s business to help another out of a scrape. If we didn’t do that we couldn’t live.”

  “Nevertheless, I shall try to pay it,” said Roylston, in significant tones.

  “For the moment we’ll think of that hut we’re lookin’ for,” said the Panther.

  “It will be more than a hut,” said Will, who was of a singularly cheerful nature. “I can see it now. It will be a gorgeous palace. Its name will be the Inn of the Panther. Menials in gorgeous livery will show us to our chambers, one for every man, where we will sleep between white sheets of the finest linen.”

  “I wonder if they will let us take our rifles to bed with us,” said Ned, “because in this country I don’t feel that I can part with mine, even for a moment.”

  “That is a mere detail which we will discuss with our host,” said Obed. “Perhaps, after you have eaten of the chicken and drunk of the wine at this glorious Inn of the Panther, you will not be so particular about the company of your rifle, Mr. Fulton.”

  The Panther uttered a cry of joy.

  “I’ve got my b’arin’s exactly now,” he said. “It ain’t more’n four miles to a cabin that I know of, an’ if raiders haven’t smashed it it’ll give us all the shelter we want.”

  “Then lead us swiftly,” said Obed. “There’s no sunset or anything to give me mystical lore, but the coming of that cabin casts its shadow before, or at least I want it to do it.”

  The Panther’s announcement brought new courage to every one and they quickened their lagging footsteps. He led toward a dark line of timber which now began to show through the driving snow, and when they passed among the trees he announced once more and with exultation:

  “Only a mile farther, boys, an’ we’ll be where the cabin stands, or stood. Don’t git your feelin’s too high, ’cause it may have been wiped off the face of the earth.”

  A little later he uttered another cry, and this was the most exultant of all.

  “There she is,” he said, pointing ahead. “She ain’t been wiped away by nobody or nothin’. Don’t you see her, that big, stout cabin ahead?”

  “I do,” said young Allen joyously, “and it’s the Inn of the Panther as sure as you live.”

  “But I don’t see any smoke coming out of the chimney,” said Ned, “and there are no gorgeous menials standing on the doorstep waiting for us.”

  “It’s
been abandoned a long time,” said the Panther. “I can tell that by its looks, but I’m thinkin’ that it’s good enough fur us an’ mighty welcome. An’ there’s a shed behind the house that’ll do for the horses. Boys, we’re travelin’ in tall luck.”

  The cabin, a large one, built of logs and adobe, was certainly a consoling sight. They had almost reached the limit of physical endurance, but they broke into a run to reach it. The Panther and Ned were the first to push open a heavy swinging door, and they entered side by side. It was dry within. The solid board roof did not seem to be damaged at all, and the floor of hard, packed earth was as dry as a bone also. At one end were a wide stone fireplace, cold long since, and a good chimney of mud and sticks. There were two windows, closed with heavy clapboard shutters.

  There was no furniture in the cabin except two rough wooden benches. Evidently the original owners had prepared well for their flight, but it was likely that no one had come since. The lonely place among the trees had passed unobserved by raiders. The shed behind the cabin was also in good condition, and they tethered there the horses, which were glad enough to escape from the bitter wind and driving snow.

  The whole party gathered in the cabin, and as they no longer feared pursuit it was agreed unanimously that they must have luxury. In this case a fire meant the greatest of all luxuries.

  They gathered an abundance of fallen wood, knocked the snow from it and heaped it on either side of the fireplace. They cut with infinite difficulty dry shavings from the inside of the logs in the wall of the house, and after a full hour of hard work lighted a blaze with flint and steel. The rest was easy, and soon they had a roaring fire. They fastened the door with the wooden bar which stood in its place and let the windows remain shut. Although there was a lack of air, they did not yet feel it, and gave themselves up to the luxury of the glowing heat.

  They took off their clothes and held them before the fire. When they were dry and warm they put them on again and felt like new beings. Strips of the antelope were fried on the ends of ramrods, and they ate plentifully. All the chill was driven from their bodies, and in its place came a deep pervading sense of comfort. The bitter wind yet howled without and they heard the snow driven against the door and windows. The sound heightened their feeling of luxury. They were like a troop of boys now, all of them—except Roylston. He sat on one of the piles of wood and his eyes gleamed as the others talked.