CHAPTER XIX.
A FIGHT AND A RESCUE.
Soon after sunset the five men started. The doctor was of opinion thatit was better not to wait until the brigands had retired to rest.
"Of course we cannot begin operations," he said, "until all is quiet;but as long as the men are sitting round the fires smoking and singingthey will keep a very careless guard, and any noise we make will passunobserved. When they once get quiet the sentries will begin to listen,but until then we might almost walk up to their fires without beingobserved."
It was necessary to move slowly and cautiously, lest they shouldfall over a rock or stump; but the doctor led the way and the othersfollowed close behind him. Twenty minutes' stealthy walking took themto the spot whence the doctor had before reconnoitred the house. Afire blazed on the terrace, and some fifteen men were sitting or lyinground it. The light fell upon bottles and glasses. One of the partywas playing upon a mandoline and singing, but few of the others wereattending to him, a noisy conversation plentifully sprinkled withSpanish oaths being kept up.
"The room where your sisters are confined," the doctor said to DonCarlos, "is round the other side of the house. I did not mean to beginuntil all were asleep, but they are making such a noise down there thatI do think it will be best to move at once, and if possible to let yoursisters know that we are here. So we will work quietly round to thatside; they had no sentry there last time, but they may have to-night."
After twenty minutes of cautious movement, they reached the foot of therock on which the house stood. The doctor had brought out from El Pasoa small grapnel and rope. The former had been carefully wrapped roundwith strips of cloth so as to deaden any sound. It was now thrown up,and at the second attempt became firmly fixed above.
"Do you mount first, Lightning," he said to Hugh. "When you get up liequiet for a minute or two. When you have quite assured yourself thatall is clear give the rope a shake. We others will come up one by one.Let each man when he gets to the top lie down."
Don Carlos followed Hugh, and the others soon joined them.
"You see that light there," the doctor said to Don Carlos. "That isyour sisters' room. As I told you, the windows on the ground floor areall blocked up, but three or four bricks have been left out just at thetop of each, for the sake of light and air. Now, Sim and you had bettergo together; he will stand against the wall, and if you climb on to hisshoulders I think you can just about reach that hole, pull yourself up,and look in. I need not tell you to be as silent as possible, for theremay be someone in with them. If they are alone tell them what we aregoing to do. See whether there are any bars inside the brickwork. I amafraid there are sure to be, the Spanish houses most always have barsto the lower windows. Royce, you and I will go to the right-hand cornerof the house; you go to the left, Lightning. If you hear anyone cominggive a low hiss as a warning, then we must all lie down close to thewall. It is so dark now that unless a man kicks against us he won't seeus. If he does touch one of you, he is likely to think that it is oneof his own party lying down there for a sleep; but if he stoops overto see who it is, you have got either to stab him or to grip him by thethroat, so that he can't shout. Now, I think we all understand."
The five men crawled cautiously to their respective stations.
"Now, young fellow," Sim said to Don Carlos, "if, when you are mountedon my shoulders, you find you cannot reach the hole, put your foot onmy head. You won't hurt me with them moccasins on. Directly you havegot your fingers on the edge give a little pat with your foot to letme know, and I will put my hands under your feet and help hoist youup. You can put a biggish slice of your weight on me; when I am tiredI will let you know. I will lean right forward against the wall--thatwill help you to climb up. Now!"
When he stood up on Sim's shoulders the young Mexican found that hecould reach the opening. Getting his fingers firmly upon it, he gavethe signal, and with Sim's aid had no difficulty in raising himself sothat he could look into the room. Two candles burned upon the table,and by their light he could see the girls stretched on couches.
"Hush, girls, hush!" he said in a low voice. "It is I, Carlos! Silence,for your lives!"
The two girls sprang to their feet. "Did you hear it, Nina?" the elderexclaimed in a low voice.
"Yes; it was the voice of Carlos. We could not both have been dreaming,surely!"
"I am up here at the opening," Carlos said. "We are here, girls,a party to rescue you; but we must get in beside you before we arediscovered, or else harm might come to you. Wait a moment," he brokein, as the girls in their delight were about to throw themselves upontheir knees to return thanks to the Virgin, "I am being held up here,and must get down in an instant. I can see that there is a grating tothe window. Is it a strong one?"
"Yes, a very strong one."
"Very well; we will saw through it presently. Do you keep on talkingloudly to each other to drown any noise that we may make. That will do,Sim; you can let me down now."
"Now, young fellow," Sim said as soon as Don Carlos reached the ground,"you go along and tell Bill Royce to come here and help. The doctorwill go on keeping watch. Then go to the other end and send Lightninghere, and you take his place. He is better for work than you are."
Sim was soon joined by Royce and Hugh. He had already set to work.
"These bricks are only adobe," he said. "My knife will soon cut throughthem."
In a very few minutes he had made a hole through the unbaked bricks."Senoritas," he said in Mexican, "place a chair against this holeand throw something over it, so that if any one comes it won't beobserved."
The men worked in turns with their keen bowies, and in half an hour thehole was large enough for a head and shoulders to pass through.
"Now for the files, Lightning. You may as well take the first spell, asyou have got them and the oil."
It took two hours' work to file through the bars. Just as the work wasfinished Sim said, "You had better fetch the lad, Lightning. Send himthrough first."
"Don't you think, doctor," Hugh said when they were gathered round thehole, "that we might get the girls off without a fight at all?"
"I doubt it," the doctor said. "The men have just gone in except twowho are left as sentries, and the night is very still. They would bealmost sure to hear some of us, and if they did the girls might getshot in the fight. Still, it might be worth trying. As soon as you getin, Don Carlos, begin to move the furniture quietly against the door."
All this time the girls had been singing hymns, but their prudence leftthem as their brother entered the room. They stopt singing abruptlyand threw themselves into his arms with a little cry of joy. Almostinstantly there was a loud knock at the door.
"What are you doing there? I am coming in," and the door was heard tounlock. Carlos threw himself against it.
"Fire the signal, doctor!" Sim exclaimed, as he thrust Hugh, who was inthe act of getting through the hole, into the room, as he did so threeshots were fired outside. The instant Hugh was through he leaped to hisfeet and ran forward. The pressure against the door had ceased, the manhaving, in his surprise at the sound of the shots, sprung back. Hughseized the handle of the door so that it could not be turned.
"Pile up the furniture," he said to Don Carlos. "Get into the corner ofthe room, senoritas; they will be firing through the door in a moment."
By this time a tremendous din was heard in the house. As yet none ofthe brigands knew what had happened, and their general impulse was torush out on the terrace to hear the cause of the shots. The doctor hadfollowed Hugh closely into the room, the hole being large enough toadmit of his getting through without any difficulty. Royce followedimmediately, and, as he got through, Sim Howlett's pistol cracked outtwice, as the sentries ran round the corner of the house, their figuresbeing visible to him by the light from the fire. Then he thrust himselfthrough the opening. The instant he was through he seized one of thecushions of the couches and placed it across the hole by which he hadentered. Several attempts
had been made to turn the handle of the door,but Hugh held it firmly, while the doctor and Carlos moved the couchesand chairs against it.
"Here, doctor, you watch this hole; I will do that work," Sim said.
They worked as silently as possible, and could hear through the openingat the top of the window the sound of shouts and oaths as a numberof men ran past on the terrace. Then one voice shouted angrily forsilence.
"There is no one here," he said. "Martinez, go in and fetch torches.What has happened? What have you seen, Lopez?"
"I have seen nothing," the voice replied. "I was lying close to thedoor when Domingo, who was on guard at the senoritas' door, saidsomething, then almost directly three shots were fired outside. Ijumped up and unfastened the door and ran out. Martos and Juan, whowere on guard outside, were just running across. I heard two more shotsfired, and down they both fell. I waited a moment until all the otherscame out, and then we ran round the corner together. As far as I seethere is nobody here."
"Mille demonios!" the first speaker exclaimed; "it must be some plotto get the girls away. Perez, run in and ask Domingo if he heard anysounds within. Open the door and see that the captives are safe."
There was a pause for a minute, and then Perez ran out.
"Domingo cannot open the door," he said. "They are moving the furnitureagainst it, and the handle won't turn; he says there must be somethingwrong there."
"Fool! What occasion is there to say that, as if anyone could not seethere was something wrong. Ah! here come the torches. Search all roundthe terrace, and ask whoever is on guard at the gate whether he hasheard anything. We will see about breaking down the door afterwards."
There was a pause, and then the men came back again.
"There is no one on the terrace. Nobody has been through the gate."
Then there was a sudden, sharp exclamation. "See here, Vargas, there isa hole here. The bricks have been cut through." A fresh volley of oathsburst out, and then the man in authority gave his orders.
"Perez, do you and Martinez take your post here. Whether there is oneor half a dozen inside they can only crawl out one at a time. You haveonly got to fire at the first head you see. The rest come inside andbreak open the door. We will soon settle with them."
"That is much better than I expected," the doctor said. "We have gainednearly five minutes. Now let them come as soon as they like. Bill, willyou stop at this end and guard this cushion. When the fight begins theymay try to push it aside and fire through at us. Let the upper end leanback a little against this chair. Yes, like that. Now, you see, you canlook down, and if you see a hand trying to push the cushion aside, puta bullet through it; don't attend to us unless we are badly pressed andcall for you."
There was now a furious onslaught made on the door from the outside,heavy blows being struck upon it with axes and crowbars.
"Now, Sim, you may as well speak to them a little," the doctor said."When you have emptied your Colt, I will have a turn while you areloading."
The noise of the blows was a sufficient indication to Sim where the menwielding the weapons were standing. He had already recharged the twochambers he had emptied, and now, steadily and deliberately, he firedsix shots through the panels of the door, and the yells and oaths toldhim that some of them had taken effect. There was a pause for a moment,and then the assault recommenced. The wood gave way beneath the axesand the door began to splinter, while a number of shots were firedfrom the outside. The doctor, however, was stooping low, and the othersstood outside the line of fire, while Bill at his end was kneeling bythe cushion. The doctor's revolver answered the shots, and when he hademptied his pistol Hugh took his place. By the furious shouts and crieswithout there was no doubt the fire was doing execution.
But the door was nearly yielding, and, just as Hugh began to fire, oneof the panels was burst in. The lock, too, had now given, the piece ofwood he had jammed into it having fallen out. The Mexicans, however,were unable to force their way in owing to the steady fire of thebesieged, who had extinguished their candles, and had the advantage ofcatching sight of their opponents through the open door, by the lightof the torches without. The besieged shifted their places after eachshot, so that the Mexicans fired almost at random.
For ten minutes the fight had raged, when there was a sudden shout,followed by a discharge of firearms without. A cheer broke from thedefenders of the room, and a cry of despair and fury from the Mexicans.The attack on the door ceased instantly, but a desperate struggleraged in the courtyard. This went on for three or four minutes, whenthe Mexicans shouted for mercy and the firing ceased. Then Don Ramon'svoice was heard to call, "Where are you? Are you all safe?" There wasa shout in reply. Then the furniture was pulled away and the splintereddoor removed, and as Don Ramon entered, his daughters, who had remainedquietly in the corner while the fight went on, rushed into his arms.
The success of the surprise had been complete. The man on guard at thegate had left his post to take part in the struggle going on in thehouse, and the officer in command of the troops had gained the terraceunobserved. He at once surrounded the house, and the two men outsidethe opening had been shot down at the same moment that he, with a dozenof his men, rushed into the courtyard and attacked the Mexicans. Noneof these had escaped. Eighteen had fallen in the house, four had beenkilled outside, and twelve had thrown down their arms, and were nowlying bound hand and foot in charge of the troops.
BESIEGED BY BRIGANDS.]
No sooner had Don Ramon assured himself that his daughters were safeand uninjured, than he turned to their rescuers and poured out hishearty thanks. They were not quite uninjured. Bill had escaped withouta wound: Don Carlos was bleeding from a pistol ball which had grazedhis cheek: Sim Howlett's right hand was disabled by a ball which hadtaken off his middle finger, and ploughed its way through the fleshof the forearm; Hugh had a bullet in the shoulder: the doctor's woundwas the only serious one, he having been hit just above the hip. Oneof the soldiers had been killed, and five wounded while fighting inthe court-yard. Leaving Don Ramon and his son to question the girls asto what had befallen them, and to tell them how their rescue had beenbrought about, the others went outside.
"Let's have a blaze, lieutenant." Sim said. "Most of us want dressinga bit, and the doctor is hit very hard. Let us make a good big fire outhere on the terrace, then we shall see what we are doing. We were in asmother of gunpowder smoke inside."
The officer gave an order, and the soldiers fetched out billets of woodfrom the store and piled them on the fire on the terrace, and soon abroad sheet of flame leaped up.
"Now, then, let us look at the wounds." Sim went on. "Let us lift youup and make you a little comfortable, doctor. I am afraid that thereis no doing anything with you till we get you down to the town. All youhave got to do is to lie quiet."
"And drink, Sim."
"Ay, and drink. I am as thirsty myself as if I had been lost on analkali plain. Bill, will you get us some drink, plenty of water, withjust a drop of spirit in it; there is sure to be plenty in the housesomewhere."
Royce soon returned with a large jar of cold water and a bottle ofspirits.
"Only a few drops of spirits. Sim, if you don't want to getinflammation in that hand of yours."
"What had I better do for it, doctor?"
"Well, it will be better to have that stump of the middle finger takenout altogether. I could do it for you if I could stand and had a knifeof the right shape here. As it is, you can't do better than wrap yourhand up in plenty of cloths, and keep them wet, and then put your armin a sling. What's yours, Lightning?"
"I am hit in the shoulder, doctor. I don't think that it is bleedingnow."
"Well, you had better get Bill to bathe it in hot water, then lay aplug of cotton over the hole, and bandage it up; the doctor at the fortwill get the ball out for you as soon as you get down there. He is agood man, they say, and, anyhow, he gets plenty of practice with pistolwounds at El Paso."
Royce did his best for his two friends. Then the
y all sat quietlytalking until the young officer came out from the house.
"We have been searching it from top to bottom," he said. "There is alot of booty stored away. I want you to have a look at the two leadersof these scoundrels; they have both been shot. Don Ramon said that hebelieved they were the murderers of his son, and that two of you mightrecognize them if they were, as you did a horse trade with them."
Hugh and Royce followed him to the other side of the house, where thebodies of the brigands who had fallen had been brought out and laiddown. Two soldiers brought torches.
"I have no doubt whatever that these are the men," Hugh said afterexamining the bodies of the two leaders, who were placed at a shortdistance from the rest.
"Them's the fellows," Royce said positively, "I could swear to themanywhere."
"They are notorious scoundrels," the officer said, "and have for yearsbeen the scourge of New Mexico. They were away, for a time, two yearsago. We had made the place so hot for them that they had to quit. Welearned that from some of their gang whom we caught. They were awaynearly a year; at least they were quiet. I suppose they carried ontheir games down in Texas, till they had to leave there too; and thenthinking the affair had blown over they returned here. There has been areward of ten thousand dollars for their capture anytime for the lastfive years. Properly that ought to be divided between you, as it isentirely your doing that they have been caught; but as the reward saysdeath or capture, I suppose my men will have to share it with you."
"That is right enough," Sim Howlett said. "It will give us three orfour hundred dollars apiece, and that don't make a bad week's workanyhow. When are you thinking of starting back, lieutenant, and whatare you going to do with this house here?"
"I shall set fire to the house after we have got everything out ofit. I guess it has been a den of brigands for the last ten years. Ihave sent four men down to keep guard at the mouth of the valley, andI expect we shall get all their horses in the morning. They must besomewhere about here. The prisoners will ride their own, and that willleave us twenty or more for carrying down the best part of the plunder.There is a lot of wine and other things that they have carried off fromthe haciendas that they plundered. I will send those down in carts withan escort of four of my men."
"Then I think we had better get a bed in one of the carts, and send mymate here down upon it. He has got a bullet somewhere in the hip, andwon't be able to sit a horse."
"We will send him off the first thing in the morning," the officersaid. "There is one of my own wounded to send down that way too."
"I will go with them as nurse," Sim said. "Get the cart to go straightthrough without a halt, lieutenant. The sooner my mate is in the handsof your doctor the better."
"I will see about it now," the lieutenant said; "no time shall be lost.I will send a sergeant and four men down to the village at once torequisition a cart and bring it here. It will be much better for themtravelling at night. I will tell the men I send as escort to get holdof another cart in the morning and send them straight on."
"Thank you, lieutenant. That will be the best plan by far."
Don Ramon now came out from the house, and joined the group.
"In the name of my children, their mother, and myself, I thank you mostdeeply, senors, for the noble way in which you have risked your livesfor their rescue. Had it not been for you, God knows whether I shouldhave seen my daughters again, for I know that no oaths would havebound those villains, and that when they had obtained the ransom theywould never have let my daughters free to give information that wouldhave led to their capture. I shall always be your debtor, and the onlydrawback to my pleasure is that three of you have been wounded."
"The doctor here is the only one wounded seriously," Sim Howlett said."My hand and arm will soon heal up, and the loss of a finger is nogreat odds anyway. I don't suppose Lightning's shoulder will turn outworse than my arm. As for the doctor, he is hit hard, but he has beenhit hard so many times, and has pulled through it, that I hope for thebest."
"Senor Hugh," Don Ramon said, "it was indeed a fortunate day for mewhen I questioned you concerning my son's horse, for it was to youradvice and to your enlisting your friends on my behalf that I owe itchiefly that my daughters are with me this evening. I must leave it totheir mother to thank you as you deserve."
Two hours later the doctor and one of the wounded soldiers were placedon a bed laid at the bottom of a cart, and started under the escort oftwo soldiers, Sim Howlett accompanying them. As the girls had expressedthe greatest disinclination to remain in the house where they had beenprisoners and where so much blood had just been shed, they with therest of the party returned with a sergeant and six soldiers carryingtorches up the valley to the wood, where the horses had been left.Here two fires were soon blazing, and the girls were not long beforethey were asleep, wrapped in blankets that had been brought up from thehouse.
The following morning Hugh and Royce handed over their horses for theuse of the girls, who were both accomplished horsewomen, and, mountingthe horses of Sim and the doctor, they started with Don Ramon, his son,and daughters. Fifteen miles before they got to El Paso they passedthe cart with the wounded men, and Hugh said he would ride into thefort to ensure the doctor being there when they arrived. Royce and heaccompanied Don Ramon and his party to the gate of the hacienda, whichthey reached just at sunset. The Mexican was warm in his entreaties toHugh to become his guest until his wound was healed, but he declinedthis on the ground that he should be well cared for at the fort, andshould have the surgeon always at hand.
"I shall be over the first thing in the morning to see you," Don Carlossaid. "I shall want my own face strapped up, and I warn you if thedoctor says you can be moved I shall bring you back with me."
Royce accompanied Hugh to the fort. The commandant was highly gratifiedwhen he heard of the complete success of the expedition, and stillmore so when he learned that the two notorious brigands for whom he andhis troopers had so often searched in vain were among the killed. Hughwas at once accommodated in the hospital, and the surgeon proceeded toexamine his wound. It was so inflamed and swollen with the long ride,he said, that no attempt could be made at present to extract the ball,and rest and quiet were absolutely necessary. Two hours later the cartarrived. The doctor was laid in a bed near that of Hugh, the thirdbed in the ward being allotted to Sim Howlett. The doctor's wound waspronounced by the surgeon to be a very serious one.
It was some days before, under the influence of poultices andembrocations, the inflammation subsided sufficiently for a searchto be made for the bullet in Hugh's shoulder. The surgeon, however,was then successful in finding it imbedded in the flesh behind theshoulder-bone, and, having found its position, he cut it out frombehind. After this Hugh's progress was rapid, and in a week he was outof bed with his arm in a sling. The doctor, contrary to the surgeon'sexpectations, also made fair progress. The bullet could not be found,and the surgeon, after one or two ineffectual attempts, decided thatit would be better to allow it to remain where it was. The stump ofSim's finger was removed the morning after he came in, and the woundhad almost completely healed by the time that Hugh was enabled to leavethe hospital, a month after entering it.
Don Ramon and his son had ridden over every day to inquire after theinvalids, and had seen that they were provided with every possibleluxury, and he carried off Hugh to the hacienda as soon as the surgeongave his consent to his making a short journey in the carriage. DonnaMaria received him as warmly as if he had been a son of her own,and he had the greatest difficulty in persuading her that he did notrequire to be treated as an invalid, and was perfectly capable of doingeverything for himself.
For a fortnight he lived a life of luxurious idleness, doing absolutelynothing beyond going over in the carriage every day to see how thedoctor was going on. Hugh saw that he was not maintaining the progressthat he had at first made. He had but little fever or pain, but he layquiet and silent, and seemed incapable of making any effort whatever.Sim Howlett was very anxious
about his comrade.
"He don't seem to me to try to get well," he said to Hugh. "It looks tome like as if he thought he had done about enough, and was ready to go.If one could rouse him up a bit I believe he would pull round. He hasgone through a lot has the doctor, and I expect he thinks there ain'tmuch worth living for. He just smiles when I speak to him, but he don'ttake no interest in things. Do you get talking with me when you go in,Lightning, and asking about what we have been doing, and I will tellyou some of the things he and I have gone through together. Maybe thatmay stir him up a bit."
"How long have you known him, Sim?"
"I came across him in '49. I came round by Panama, being one of thefirst lot to leave New York when the news of gold came. I had been awaylogging for some months, and had come down at the end of the seasonwith six months' money in my pocket. I had been saving up for a year ortwo, and was going to put it all in partnership with a cousin of mine,who undertook the building of piers and wharves and such like on theHudson. Well, the first news that met me when I came down to New Yorkwas that Jim had busted up, and had gone out west some said, othersthat he had drowned hisself. I was sorry for Jim, but I was mighty gladthat I hadn't put my pile in.
"Waal, I was wondering what to start on next when the talk about goldbegan, and as soon as I larned there were no mistake about it I wentdown to the wharf and took my passage down to the isthmus. I had beenworking about three months on the Yuba when I came across the doctor. Ihad seen him often afore we came to speak. If you wur to see the doctornow for the first time when he is just sitting quiet and talking inthat woman sort of voice of his and with those big blue eyes, you wouldthink maybe that he was a kind of softy, wouldn't you?"
"I dare say I might, Sim. I saw him for the first time when he came upwith you to take my part against that crowd of Mexicans. There didn'tlook anything soft about him then, and though I was struck with hisgentle way of talking when I met him afterwards I knew so well therewas lots of fight in him that it didn't strike me he was anything of asofty, as you say."
"No? Waal, the doctor has changed since I met him, but at that timehe did look a softy, and most people put him down as being short ofwits. He used just to go about the camp as if he paid no attention towhat wur going on. Sometimes he would go down to a bit of a claim hehad taken up and wash out the gravel, just singing to himself, not asthough it wur to amuse him, but as though he did not know as he wursinging, in a sort of curious far-off sort of voice; but mostly hewent about doing odd sorts of jobs. If there wur a man down with thefever the doctor would just walk into his tent and take him in hand andlook after him, and when he got better would just drift away, and likeenough not seem to know the man the next time he met him.
"Waal, he got to be called Softy, but men allowed as he wur a goodfellow, and was just as choke-full of kindness as his brain would hold,and, as he walked about, any chap who was taking his grub would askhim to share it, for it was sartin that what gold he got wouldn't buyenough to keep a cat alive, much less a man. Waal, it was this way. Igot down with fever from working in the water under a hot sun. I hadn'tany particular mates that time, and wur living in a bit of a tent madeof a couple of blankets, and though the boys looked in and did any jobthat wur wanted I wur mighty bad and went off my head for a bit, andthe first thing I seen when I came round was Softy in the tent tendingme. Ef he had been a woman and I had been his son he couldn't havelooked after me tenderer.
"I found when I began to get round he had been getting meat for mefrom the boys and making soups, but as soon as I got round enough toknow what was going on I pointed out to him the place where I had hidmy dust, and he took charge of it and got me what was wanted, till Ipicked up and got middling strong again. As soon as I did Softy wentoff to look after someone else who was bad, but I think he took to memore than he had to anyone else, for he would come in and sit with mesometimes in the evening, and I found that he wurn't really short ofwits as people thought, but would talk on most things just as straightas anyone. He didn't seem to have much interest in the digging, whichwur about the only thing we thought of; but when I asked him what hehad come to the mining camps for, if it wasn't to get gold, he justsmiled gently and said he had a mission.
"What the mission wur he never said, and I concluded that though hewas all there in other things his brain had somehow got mixed on thatpoint, onless it wur that his mission was to look after the sick. Waal,we were a rough lot in '49, you bet. Lynch-law hadn't begun, and therewuz rows and fights of the wust kind. Our camp had been pretty quietontil someone set up a saloon and gambling shop, and some pretty toughcharacters came. That was just as I wur getting about agin, thoughnot able to work regular. It wurn't long before two fellows became theterror of the camp, and they went on so bad that the boys began to talkamong themselves that they must be put down; but no one cared abouttaking the lead. They had shot four fellows in the first week afterthey came.
"I hadn't seen Softy for ten days. He had been away nussing a woodmanas had his leg broke by the fall of a tree. I was sitting outside mytent with a chap they called Red Sam. We had a bottle of brandy betweenus, when them two fellows came along, and one of them just stooped andtook up the bottle and put it to his lips and drank half of it off, andthen passed it to the other without saying by your leave or anything.Red Sam said, 'Well, I'm blowed!' when the fellow who had drunk whippedout his bowie--six-shooters had hardly come in then--and afore RedSam could get fairly to his feet he struck him under the ribs. Waal,I jumped up and drew my bowie, for it wur my quarrel, you see. He madeat me. I caught his wrist as the knife was coming down, and he caughtmine; but I wur like a child in his arms. I thought it wur all overwith me, when I heard a shout, and Softy sprang on the man like a wildcat and drove his knife right into him, and he went down like a log.
"The other shouted out an oath and drew. Softy faced him. It wur thestrangest sight I ever seen. His hat had fallen off, and his hair,which wur just as white then as it is now, fell back from his face, andhis eyes, that looked so soft and gentle, wur just blazing. It cameacross me then, as it have come across me many a time since, that helooked like a lion going to spring; and I think Buckskin, as the mancalled himself, who had often boasted as he didn't fear a living thing,was frighted. They stood facing each other for a moment, and thenSofty sprang at him. He was so quick that instead of Buckskin's knifecatching him, as he intended, just in front of the shoulder and goingstraight down to the heart, it caught him behind the shoulder, and laidopen his back pretty near down to the waist.
"But there wur no mistake about Softy's stroke. It went fair betweenthe ribs, and Buckskin fell back dead, with Softy on the top of him.Waal, after that it wur my turn to nuss the doctor, for no one calledhim Softy after that. He wur laid up for over a month, and I thinkthat letting out of blood did him good and cleared his brain like.When he got well he wur just as you see him now, just as clear and assensible a chap as you would see. Why, he has got as much sense as youwould find in any man west of Missouri, and he's the truest mate andthe kindest heart. I have never seen the doctor out of temper, for youcan't call it being out of temper when he rises up and goes for a man;that is his mission. He has never got that out of his head, and neverwill ontil he dies.
"He can put up with a deal, the doctor can; but when a man gits justtoo bad for anything, then it seems to him as he has got a call to wipehim out, and he wipes him out, you bet. You don't want lynch-law wherethe doctor is: he is a judge and a posse all to himself, and for yearshe was the terror of hard characters down in California. They was justskeered of him, and if a downright bad man came to a camp and heard thedoctor wur there, he would in general clear straight out agin. He hasbeen shot and cut all over, has the doctor, and half a dozen times itseemed to me I should never bring him round agin.
"It ain't no use talking to him and asking him why he should take onhisself to be a jedge and jury. When it's all over he always says inhis gentle way that he is sorry about it, and I do think he is, and hesays he will attend to his own busi
ness in future; but the next timeit is just the same thing again. There ain't no holding him. You mightjust as well try to stop a mountain lion when he smells blood. At suchtimes he ain't hisself. If you had once seen him you would never forgetit. There wur a British painting fellow who wur travelling about takingpictures for a book. He wur in camp once when the doctor's dander rose,and he went for a man; and the Britisher said arterwards to me as itwere like the bersek rage. I never heard tell of the berseks; but fromwhat the chap said I guessed they lived in the old time. Waal, if theywur like the doctor I tell you that I shouldn't like to get into a musswith them. No, sir."
"Do you know what the doctor's history is, Sim?"
"Yes, I do know," he said, "but I don't suppose anyone else does. Maybehe will tell you some day if he gets over this."
"Oh! I don't want to know if it is a secret, Sim."
"Waal, there ain't no secret in it, Lightning; but he don't talk aboutit, and in course I don't. It is a sort of thing that has happened toother men, and maybe after a bit they have got over it; but the doctorain't. You see he ain't a common man: he has got the heart of a woman,and for a time it pretty nigh crazed him."