Redskin and Cow-Boy: A Tale of the Western Plains

"My idea was, Sim," Hugh said, "that if this is the work of the band in that house the doctor was telling me about this morning, we could be in hiding near it; and directly the men who take the girls back to their father return with the ransom, we could fall upon them, destroy the whole band, and get back the money."

"We should want a big force to surround the place," Sim replied; "and there would be no getting it there without being seen. You bet there are a score of them on the look-out, and their friends would bring them word, long before we got there, of such a force being on the way. Besides, there is no surety that it is the place where the gals are, and, even if it is, the hull band may leave when they send the gals away. They may scatter all over the country, and meet again at night fifty miles off. Another thing is, you may bet your boots there will be a lot of trouble about handing over that ransom, and they won't give 'em up until after they have got the money."

"I see that there are all sorts of difficulties before us, Sim, but I am sure you and the doctor will see some way out of it. I am deeply interested in rescuing these poor girls, and we are all interested in this band being wiped out before we start."

"Have you any plan at all?" the doctor asked. "You have had longer time to think this over than we have."

"Well, doctor, my idea was that we could start to-night and get to some place among the hills, where we could hide our horses a mile or two from this house where we suppose they are. We should lie quiet there to-morrow. The next evening we should make our way down, and try and ascertain for certain whether they are there, and see whether it is possible to carry them off.

"Of course that couldn't be attempted unless we are absolutely certain of being able to protect them. If we could get them out without being seen, we might try to do it. If it is not certain we could do that, and get off without being seen, I should say one of us should ride back next morning to Don Ramon and get him to bring up twenty or thirty of his men, or if not, a body of troops from the fort. We should guide them at night to a point as near the house as it would be safe for them to get. Then we four could crawl down to the house. The moment we are in a position to protect the girls, that is to say if we can get into the room where they are kept, we will fire a pistol-shot out of the window as a signal. Then we shall have to make as good a fight of it as we can till the others come up to help us.

"You may be sure that the brigands will be all pretty well occupied with us, and the other party will be able to surround the house, and then rush in to our assistance."

"That looks a good plan, by thunder!" Sim Howlett said. "What do you say, doctor?"

"Well, I think it might be worked somehow on those lines," the doctor agreed. "I don't think there is much danger for the ladies, because, if the brigands did come upon us when we were scouting, some of them would attack us, and the rest would carry the ladies off to some other hiding-place. I don't say if they were surrounded and saw no chance of escape they mightn't kill them out of revenge, but they would never do that until the last thing, because they would reckon, and truly enough, that as long as they are in their hands they have got the means of making terms for themselves. But to one thing I agree anyhow. Let us get our horses and start at once. Don't let us go together. We will meet at the first cross-road a mile to the west of the town. No one is likely to notice us going out. There are plenty of people who have come in from the country to this festa; besides, just at present they won't be watching us. They know what our plans are, and that we don't intend to start for another week, and they won't be giving a thought to us until this affair of the girls is settled. What do you say, Sim?"

"That is right enough," Sim said; "but we must be careful about the roads, doctor. Like enough they will have a man on every road going anywhere near the place, and perhaps miles away."

"Yes, we must make a big circuit," the doctor agreed. "Strike the hills fifteen or twenty miles away from their place, and then work up through them so as to come down right from the other side."

"Shall I get some provisions at the hotel?" Hugh asked.

"No; we will attend to that. There are plenty of places open, and we will get what is wanted. Now, do you and Bill go back by yourselves; we will follow in a minute or two."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE BRIGANDS' HAUNT

BY daybreak on the following morning Hugh and his three companions were far among the hills. They had halted an hour before, and intended to wait until noon before pursuing their journey. They had already been eight hours in the saddle, and had travelled over sixty miles. They had halted in a little valley where there was plenty of grass for the horses, and after cooking some food lay down and slept until the sun was nearly overhead. Fortunately, the two miners had traversed the country several times, and were able to lead them across the mountains, where otherwise it would have been impossible to find a way.

After four hours' riding, on emerging from a valley the doctor said:

"There, do you see that village three miles away? That is the village where we stopped. The gorge in which the house lies runs from the village in this direction. You cannot see it here: it is a sort of cañon cut out ages ago by the water. The sides are nearly perpendicular; but at the upper end the bottom rises rapidly, and, as far as we could see from the spot from which we looked at it, there is no difficulty in getting down there. As you see, there are woods lying back to the left. We have got to come down at the back of them, and there is no chance of our being seen even if they have got men on the lookout on the high ground above the house. They will be looking the other way; they can see miles across the plain there. Of course they have no reason to believe that anyone knows of their haunt; still, they are always on the look-out against treachery."

"Well, let's go on at a trot now, doctor. We shall be in the wood before sunset."

When they reached the trees they dismounted, and led their horses until they perceived daylight through the trunks on the opposite side.

"Now we will finish the remainder of our dinner," the doctor said, "and talk matters over. We are about half a mile now from the end of the valley, and it is another half-mile down to the house. Now, what are we going to do? Are we all going, or only one?"

Hugh was silent. These men understood matters better than he did.

"Only one, of course," Sim Howlett said. "The others can come on to the top of the valley so as to lend a hand if he is chased; but it would be just chucking away lives for more than one to go. Well, it is either you or me, doc."

"Why?" Hugh asked. "I am quite ready to go, and I am sure Bill is too. Besides, this question of the young ladies is more my affair than yours, since you do not know them, and I certainly think I ought to be the one to go."

"There is one reason agin it, Lightning," Sim said. "What you say is true, and if it came to running you could leg it a good bit faster than the doc. or me; but that don't count for much in the dark. It is creeping and crawling that is wanted more than running. The reason why the doc. or I must go is, you don't speak Mexican, and we do. It ain't likely that the young ladies will be seen out in the verandah, and one can't go and look into each of the windows till we find the right one. We have got to listen, and that way we may find whether they are there, and if we are lucky, which room they are in. So you see it is for one of us to go."

"I shall go, Sim," the doctor said quietly. "I can walk as lightly as a cat. I haven't above half as much bulk to hide as you have, and I am cunning while you are strong, and this is a case where cunning is of more use than strength. So it is settled that I go; but you may as well give me your six-shooter. I may want twelve barrels."

"I shall be sorry for the Mexicans if you use them all, doc.," Sim Howlett said, handing over his pistol to the doctor. "I would rather go myself; but I know when you have once made up your mind to anything it ain't no sort of use argying."

"That's right," the doctor said, putting the weapon into his belt. "Well, there is just time for a pipe before I start. The sun has been down nearly half an hour, and the moon won't be up over those hills there for another hour, so we shall have it dark till I get well down into the valley, and the moon won't be high enough to throw its light down there afore I am back again."

"A wonderful man is the doctor!" Sim Howlett said when, with noiseless step, he had made his way down into the upper end of the ravine. "You wouldn't think much of him to look at him. But, you bet, he has got as much grit as if he was ten times as big. See him going about, and you would say he might be one of them missionaries, or a scientific chap such as those as comes round looking after birds and snakes and such like. He sorter seems most like a woman with his low talk and gentle way, and yet I suppose he has killed more downright bad men than any five men on this side of Missouri."

"You don't say so!" Hugh said in surprise.

"Yes, sir, he is a hull team and a little dog under the waggon, he is. He ain't a chap to quarrel; he don't drink, and he don't gamble, and he speaks everyone fair and civil. It ain't that; but he has got somethin' in him that seems to swell up when he hears of bad goings-on. When there is a real bad man comes to the camp where he is, and takes to bossing the show, and to shooting free, after a time you can see the doctor gets oncomfortable in his mind; but he goes on till that bad man does something out of the way – shoots a fellow just out of pure cussedness, or something of that kind – then he just says this must be put down, and off he goes and faces that bad man and gives him a fair show and lays him out."

"You mean he doesn't fire until the other man is heeled, Sim?"

"Yes, I mean that."

"Then how is it he hasn't got killed himself?"

"That is what we have said a hundred times, Lightning. He has been shot all over, but never mortally. One thing, his looks are enough to scare a man. Somehow he don't look altogether arthly with that white hair of his – and it has been the same colour ever since I have known him – floating back from his face. He goes in general bareheaded when he sets out to shoot, and the hair somehow seems to stand out; not a bit like it does other times. I heard a chap who had been a doctor afore he took to gold-digging say his hair looked as if it had been electrified. Then he gets as white as snow, and his eyes just blaze out. I tell you, sirree, it is something frightful to see him; and when he comes right into a crowded saloon and says to the man, as he always does say in a sort of tone that seems somehow to frizz up the blood of every man that hears it, 'It is time for you to die!' you bet it makes the very hardest man weaken. I tell you I would rather face Judge Lynch and a hundred regulators than stand up agin the doctor when his fit is on; and I have seen men who never missed their mark afore shoot wide of him altogether."

"And he never misses?" Royce asked.

"Miss!" Sim repeated; "the doctor couldn't miss if he tried. I've never known his bullet go a hair's-breadth off the mark. It always hits plumb in the centre of the forehead. If there is more than one of them, the doc. turns on the others and warns them: 'Git out of the camp afore night!' and you bet they git. He gives me a lot of trouble, the doc. does, in the way of nursing. I have put it to him over and over again if it is fair on me that he should be on his back three months every year, 'cause that is about what it's been since I have known him. He allows as it ain't fair, but, as he says, 'It ain't me, Sim, I have got to do it; I am like a Malay running a-muck – them's chaps out somewhere near China, he tells me, as gets mad and goes for a hull crowd – and I can't help it;' and I don't think he can. And yet you know at other times he is just about the kindest chap that breathes. He is always a-nussing the sick and sitting up nights with them, and such like. That is why he got the name of doctor."

"He isn't a doctor really then?" Hugh asked.

"Waal, Lightning, all that's his secret, and ef he thinks to tell you, he can do it. I know he is the best mate a man ever had, and one of the best critters in God's universe, and that is good enough for me. I reckon he must be somewhere down among them Mexikins by this time," he went on, changing the subject abruptly.

"I almost wish one of us had gone with him," Royce said, "so that if he should get found out we might make a better fight of it."

"He ain't likely to get found out," Sim said quietly, "and ef he does he kin fight his way out. I don't know what way the doctor will die, but I allowed years ago that it weren't going to be by a bullet. I ain't skeery about him. Ef I had thought there wur any kind of risk, I would have gone with him, you bet."

It was two hours before the doctor suddenly stood in the moonlight before them. They had been listening attentively for some time, but had not heard the slightest sound until he emerged from the shadow of the ravine.

"Well, doctor, are we on the right scent?"

"The girls are there, Sim, sure enough. Now let us go back to the wood before we talk. We have been caught asleep once on this expedition, when we thought we were so safe that we needn't be on the watch, and I don't propose to throw away a chance again." They went back without another word to the wood. As soon as they reached it the doctor sat down at the foot of a tree, and lighted his pipe; the others followed his example.

"Well, there was no danger about that job," he began. "It seems not to have struck the fools that anyone was likely to come down from this end of the gulch. Down at the other end they have got two sentries on each side upon the heights. I could see them in the moonlight. I reckon they have some more at the mouth of the valley, down near the village; but you may guess I asked no questions about it. I saw no one in the gulch until I got down close to the house. It is as strong a place as if it had been built for the purpose. It stands on a sort of table of rock that juts out from the hill-side; so that on three sides it goes straight down. There is a space round the house forty or fifty feet wide.

"On the side where the rock stands out from the hill they have got a wall twelve feet high, with a strong gate in it. On that side of the house they have bricked all the windows up, so as to prevent their being commanded by a force on the hill-side above them, and all the windows on the ground-floor all round are bricked up too. I expect the rooms are lighted from a courtyard inside. So you see it is a pretty difficult sort of place to take all of a sudden. I could hear the voices of five or six men sitting smoking and talking outside the door, which is not on the side facing the hill, but on the other side. I guessed that when the house was built there must have been steps up from that side, for there is a road that runs along the bottom of the valley; so I crawled up and found that it was so. There had been a broad flight of steps there; they had been broken away and pulled down, still they were good enough for me. There were one or two blocks still sticking out from the rock, and there were holes where other blocks had been let in, and I made a shift to climb up without much difficulty till I got my eyes level with the top.

"The moon hadn't risen over the brow, still it was lighter than I liked; but one had to risk something; so I first of all pulled myself up, crawled along the edge till I got round the corner, and then went up to the house and examined the windows on the other side, and then got back to the top of the steps and began to listen. I soon heard the girls were there. They had brought them straight there after they had carried them off. A man had started early the next morning with a letter to Don Ramon demanding ransom. He was expected back some time to-night. They had had news that so far the don was taking no steps to raise the country, though the news of the girls being carried off was generally known. I didn't hear what the sum named for the ransom was; but the men were talking over what they should each do with their share of it, and they reckoned that each would have seven or eight thousand dollars.

"Well, there wasn't anything new about this. The matter of interest to us was which was the room where the girls were. As the journey would have been of no sort of use if I could not find that out, there was nothing to do but to get up again and crawl along to the house. I had reckoned that I should most likely want my rope, and had wound it round my waist. There was a guard at the gate, so it was one of the sides I had to try.

"I had learned from what the men said that most of the gang were away scattered all over the country down to El Paso, so as to bring news at once if there was any search for the girls going on. The chief and his lieutenant were down in the village, and would ride in with the messenger who brought down Ramon's answer. There was a guard inside the house, because the men at the fire said it was time for two of them to go and relieve them; but I guessed that otherwise the house was empty. I threw my rope over a balcony and climbed up, opened the fastening of the window with my knife, and went in. Everything was quiet. I felt my way across the room to a window on the other side. I opened that and looked down into the courtyard. Two or three lanterns were burning there, and I saw two men sitting on a bench that was placed across a door. They were smoking cigarettes, and had their guns leaning against the wall beside them. There was no doubt that was the room where the girls were.

"It was on the opposite side of the courtyard to that where I was standing – that is, on the side of the house facing down the valley, – and was the corner room.