CHAPTER X.
The day that broke on old Fort Worth thus late in a sunshiny May provedone of deep anxiety. There was no telegraph wire then to connect it withthe distant head-quarters of the department. If there had been it wouldhave been cut six times a week. There was no way of waving back thecoming convoy or of signalling danger. Crockett Springs lay a long day'sride to the southeast, and the little troop of cavalry there in camp waslooking for the coming of no call upon it for duty until early on themorrow it should supply the paymaster and his party with breakfast, theambulance with fresh mules and driver, and the night riders of theescort with their relief. Forty troopers from Crockett Springs wouldtake the place of those who had come from the San Saba, and trot alongwith the paymaster until, somewhere about midway to Worth, they shouldmeet the forty sent out the previous night to bivouac on the prairie andbe ready to take up the gait and keep it until the man of money and hissafe were well within the limits of the reservation. But the fifty-milestage from Crockett to the southeast was the worst on the long line.The road wound over the divide to the valley of the San Saba, and on theway had to twist and turn through defiles of the range of hills, wheremore than a dozen times Indians and outlaws had defied the littledetachments of cavalry scouting after them. The worst part of the passlay some twenty miles beyond the stage station at Crockett Springs.Neither Indians nor outlaws, to be sure, had been heard of in thatneighborhood for several months, but that proved nothing. It was easyfor the latter to sweep from their supposed fastnesses in the Apacherange to the west, and, issuing from the Wild Rose Pass, to water milesbelow the springs and then line the rocks in the heart of the San SabaPass, without a trooper being the wiser. Forty cavalrymen, as Lawrenceknew, would be the major's escort from the camp on the Rio San Sababeyond the range. Forty men disciplined and organized ought ordinarilyto be able to cope with any band of outlaws to be found in Texas. Butwhen, as was now reasonably certain, this far-famed Friday gang hadreceived accessions from the troops themselves and had welcomed thedeserters and desperadoes so frequently sloughed off from the soldierskin of Uncle Sam in the days close following the great war, there wasgrave reason for precaution, and graver still for anxiety. Question ashe might, Frazier could not shake an atom of the original statement ofFuller's men. Fifty mounted outlaws, at least count, with a dozen ledhorses, they had seen through their field-glass far over the prairie,pushing southeastward from the direction of Wild Rose Pass of the Apacherange, straight for the lower valley through which ran the little streamthat had its source at Crockett Springs.
So there were anxious hearts at Worth, for, while it was felt thatBrooks would lose no moment and was well on his way at four o'clock ofthis bright Sunday morning, he had still some sixty miles to traversebefore he could get to Crockett, rest and bait his men and horses, pickup Cramer's troop there camped, and then push ahead for the San Saba,where he expected to find the outlaw gang disposed in ambuscade,confidently awaiting the coming of their prey.
Now, Brooks had men enough to thrash them soundly, but unless he caughtthem in the act of spoliation he lacked authority. Just as sure as hepitched into a force of armed frontiersmen, they would appeal to thecourts, and public sentiment would be dead against him. He coulddoubtless push ahead through the range, careless of lurking scouts ofthe would-be robbers, meet Major Pennywise and his protectors, andescort them back in safety. That problem presented no great difficulty;but what Frazier wanted and Brooks wanted and everybody, presumably,wanted was that the outlaws should be caught in the act and be punishedthen and there. The question was how to catch them in the act withoutbeing themselves discovered, and before the gang had had time to inflictmuch damage on the paymaster's party. There was the rub. "Why, theirfirst volley, delivered from ambush, might kill half the outfit and thepaymaster too," said Frazier. "No, we dare not risk it, Brooks. Pushthrough and pull him through, that's the best we can do--unless," andhere came the redeeming clause, "unless on the way you should light onsome unforeseen chance. Then--use your discretion."
Mounted on the very horse he used to ride as troop commander, and withthe old familiar horse-equipments, Ned Lawrence left the post at themajor's side. He had slept as only soldiers can, curled up in thestage-coach, during the previous afternoon, and was in far better trimfor the long ride in saddle than Captain Mullane, who with bleary eyesand muddled head rode _solus_ in front of the leading troop, his onelieutenant, Mr. Bralligan, being reported by Dr. Collabone's assistantas sick in quarters, which indeed he was, with a lump the size of anapple on the side of his head, and another, apparently the heft anddensity of a six-pounder cannon-ball, rolling about inside of it. "D"Troop, jogging easily along at the rear of column, was led by Barclayand Brayton, both of whom had marked the absence of the subaltern of theleading company, and neither of whom was surprised when ten miles outthere came galloping past them, with a touch of the hand to hishat-brim, the late regimental commissary, Lieutenant Harry Winn.
"That's good!" said Brayton, as he saw his classmate ride up to themajor and report, then fall back and range himself alongside Mullane.But Barclay was silent.
"You think he ought not to have come?" asked Brayton, half hesitatingly,as he glanced at his silent leader.
"I'm thinking more of others--who should be here," was the answer. "Yetthose two have so much to leave." And Brayton, following the glance ofhis captain's eyes, fully understood.
The morning grew warm as the sun began to climb above the distantlow-lying hills to the east. The dust soon rose in dense clouds frombeneath the crushing hoofs, and, leaving Brayton with the troop, Barclaycut across the chord of a long arc in the trail and reined up alongsidethe major. The command at the moment was moving at a sharp trot througha long, low depression in the prairie-like surface. Brooks returned thecaptain's punctilious salute with a cheery nod and cordial word ofgreeting.
"With your permission, sir, I will fall back a hundred yards or so,divide the troop into sections, and so avoid the dust."
Brooks glanced back over his shoulder. "Why, certainly, captain," saidhe. "I ought to have known the dust would be rising by this time. It'seight o'clock," he continued, glancing at his watch. Barclay turned insaddle and signalled with his gauntlet, whereat Brayton slackened speedto the walk, and a gap began to grow between the rearmost horses ofMullane's troop and the head of "D's" already dusty column.
"Ride with us a moment, won't you, Barclay?" called the major,significantly, as his subordinate seemed on the point of reining asideto wait for his men. "I want you two to know each other." And the newand the old captain of "D" Troop, who had courteously shaken hands witheach other when presented in the dim light of the declining moon at fouro'clock, now trotted side by side, Lawrence eying his successor withkeen yet pleasant interest. He had been hearing all manner of good ofhim during the wakeful watches of the night, and was manfully fightingagainst the faint yet irrepressible feeling of jealous dislike withwhich broader and better men than he have had to struggle on beingsupplanted. Do what he might to battle against it, Lawrence had beenconscious of it hour after hour, and felt that he winced time and againwhen some of the callers spoke even guardedly of the changes Barclay wasmaking in the old troop, changes all men except the ultra-conservativeranker element (as the ranker was so often constituted at that peculiartime, be it understood) could see were for the better.
"You and Barclay lead on, will you, Ned?" said the major, in his genialway. "I wish to speak with Mullane a moment." Whereat he reined out tothe right and waited for the big Irishman to come lunging up. Mullanewas already spurring close at his heels, gloomily eying the combinationin front. "There are Oirish and Oirish," as one of their mostappreciative and broad-minded exponents, Private Terence Mulvaney, hastold us; and it galled the veteran dragoon to see his junior in rankbidden to ride even for the moment at the head of the swiftly movingcolumn. So, reckless of the fact that his individual spurt would callfor a certain forcing of the pace along his entire troop, now moving inlong column of twos, Mullane had s
purred his horse to close thetwelve-yard gap between himself and the major's orderly, determined thatthere should be no conference of the powers in which he was notrepresented.
"Captain Mullane," said Brooks, "I see it is getting dusty. You mightdivide into sections, as 'D' troop has done, and keep fifty yards apart,so that the dust can blow aside and not choke your men."
"This is 'L' Troop, sorr, and my men are not babes in arrums," wasMullane's magnificent reply. At any other time he might have felt thepertinence of the suggestion, but here was a case where a doughboycaptain, bedad, had instigated the measure for the comfort of his men.That was enough to damn it in the eyes of the old dragoon. The answerwas shouted, too, with double intent. Mullane desired Barclay to hearwhat he thought of such over-solicitude; but Barclay, riding onwardsturdily if not quite so easily as was Lawrence, gave no sign. He waslistening, with head inclined, to the words of the keen campaigner onhis right.
Brooks was quick to note the intention of the Irish officer, and equallyquick to note the flushed and inflamed condition of his face, thethickness of his tongue. "So ho, my Celtic friend," thought he, as hesaw that two canteens were swung on the off side of Mullane's saddle,one at the cantle under the rolled blanket, the other half shaded by thebulging folds of the overcoat at the pommel, "I suspected there was morewhiskey than wit in your eagerness at the start; now I know it."
But even to Mullane the major would not speak discourteously. "We allknow 'L' Troop is ready for anything, captain," he smilingly answered,"but I have to call for unusual exertion to-day, and the fresher theyare to-night the better. Let them open out, as I say," he continued; andMullane saw it was useless to put on further airs.
"You 'tind to it, sergeant," he grunted over his shoulder to his loyalhenchman, and then, uninvited, ranged up alongside the leader.
The prairie was open here; the road split up into several tracks fromtime to time, and the men could have ridden platoon front without muchdifficulty for two or three miles. Away to the southeast the ground rosein slow, gradual, almost imperceptible slope to the edge of the farhorizon, not a tree or shrub exceeding a yard in height breakinganywhere the dull monotony of the landscape. Eastward, miles and milesaway, a line of low rolling hills framed the dull hues of the picture.Northward there was the same almost limitless expanse of low, lazyundulation. To the right front, the south and southwest, the land seemedto fall away in even longer, lazier billows, until it flattened out intoa broad valley, drained by some far-distant, invisible stream. Only tothe west and northwest, over their right shoulders, was there gleam ofsomething brighter. The faint blue outline of the far-away Apache rangewas still capped in places by glistening white, while straight away tothe northwest, back of and beyond the dim dust-cloud through which theswallow-tailed guidons were peeping, hovered over their winding trailthe bold and commanding heights, Fort Worth's shelter against the keenblasts that swept in winter-time across the prairie from the uppervalley of the Rio Bravo. Four hours out, and just where the road dippedinto that broad deep swale a quarter-mile behind the rearmosttroopers,--just where the wreck of one of Fuller's wagons and the bonesof two of Fuller's mules and the soft spongy mud to the west of thetrail told how the waters could gather there in the rainy season andevaporate to nothingness when needed in the dry,--a solitary stakedriven into the yielding soil bore on bullet-perforated cross-board thelegend, "20 miles to Worth and only 20 rods to Hell."
Only twenty miles in four hours, with fresh horses and the cool of themorning, and a paymaster with forty thousand dollars in deadly dangersome sixty to eighty miles away. Slow going that, yet scientific. Notanother drop of water could those lively chargers hope to have untilthey reached the springs at Crockett, forty miles away. Thrice hasBrooks halted for brief ten minutes' rest, the resetting of saddles,etc., and now, after fifteen minutes' lively jog, he signals "walk"again, and glances back to watch the march of his men. By this time thecolumn is long drawn out. The two troops are split up into four sectionseach, riding a little over a dozen men in a bunch; by this means theyare relieved from the ill effects of the choking clouds of dust. Mullanehalts with the major. It pleases him to convey the impression to his menthat Brooks can't get along without him. A big pull at his pommelcanteen, ten minutes back, has temporarily braced him, and he wants totalk, whereas Brooks, intent on the duty before him, wishes to think.
"Hwat time will we make Crockett's, major?"
"Not before five or five-thirty," is the brief answer.
"'L' Troop can do it in two hours less."
"So could 'D,' if it hadn't to push on again at nightfall." Brooksanswers in civil tone, despite the hint conveyed by the brevity of hiswords, despite the conviction that is growing on him as he somewhatwarily glances over his companion, that what "L" might do its captainwon't do if he consults that canteen again. Two silent but keen-earedorderlies are sitting in saddle close beside their respective officers,and it will not do to give his thoughts away.
Then Mullane tries another tack. He seeks confidential relations withhis chief; and when an Irishman has a man he is jealous of to talk aboutand whiskey to start him, he needs no supply of facts; they bubble fromhis seething brain, manufactured for the occasion.
"The Preacher was caught where he couldn't get out of it," says he, witha leering wink at the leading horseman. "Is he larnin' his thrade fromLawrence, afther robbin' him av his throop?"
And now Brooks fires up unexpectedly. Turning quickly on the Irishmanwith anger in his eyes, the major bends forward over the pommel."Captain Mullane," he says, so low that the near-by troopers fail tocatch his words, so distinctly that the captain cannot fail to, "thereare things of more value in a trade than the tricks of it that you seemto know so well. You can learn more from Captain Barclay that is worthknowing than you can ever teach him, and I'll listen to no slur at hisexpense. You've been drinking too much, Mullane. Take my advice and pullthe stopper out of that canteen and put one on your tongue."
The Irishman boils up with wrath. The idea of Major Mildmanners pitchinginto him--him, that was once the pride of the Second Dragoons!--andpraising that white-livered parson! Whurroo! Mullane at the moment couldhave flung commission and conscience to the wind, everything but thatcanteen. Nothing but the stern and icy stare in Brooks's usuallybenignant eye represses the outburst trembling on the tangling tip ofhis tongue.
"If you knew--what I know, sorr, that man'd not be ridin' wid hisbetthers," he begins, "and it's this night that'll prove me wurrds."