The Lost Gold of the Montezumas: A Story of the Alamo

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 be very pleasant but they are not exciting. As Colonel Bowie remarked to his men, however, —

"A squad like ours, mounted as we are, can get ahead faster than a big band like Great Bear's. They'll send scouting-parties ahead, but we can keep out of their way. We're making first-rate time."

So they were, and they were also carefully keeping their horses in good condition for any required run. They carried no baggage, and they had now, they thought, a long "start" ahead of their Comanche pursuers.

The most silent rider among them, not excepting Castro himself, was Red Wolf, and it was not altogether because he was a boy. The fact was that he had been seeing and hearing a great deal, and that he was full to bursting with the spirit of adventure which all the while spoke out in the talk of the Texans.

They told wild stories of old war-paths; of fights of every kind, and of 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 the young Lipan grew more and more interested in an idea he never had before, – the idea of riches. It did not yet take complete shape in his mind, excepting in one form, given by Big Knife, the hero. It was what he said about the great gun in the plaza of the Alamo, and the money it would cost to kill Mexicans with that and the other cannon. The "heap guns" themselves had cost a great deal of money. In that shape, or even in the shape of rifles or horses, Red Wolf could now understand it fairly well. He thought of the bags in the hole in the adobe wall, but these, he believed, belonged to Big Knife and the Texans. They could not be the property of a Lipan boy, and he never thought of such a thing for a moment. Very vaguely, moreover, he had gathered that this present war-party expected to find gold and silver and to bring it back with them, after killing enemies and winning glory in fights.

It was all new and it was all wonderful, but there was no use in talking about it, so he kept still and was inclined to ride ahead, or else to linger some distance behind his party.

As yet there had been no sign of any pursuers near them, but toward the close of one long, bright day Red Wolf had fallen so far behind that he was almost out of sight of his pale-face friends.

The swift mustang under him was in fine condition. So very well did he feel that he was restive, and a deer that sprang out of a covert of hazel-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 as send 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, coming over a rise of ground not two hundred yards away, rode three Comanches. The instant they were discovered they uttered fierce whoops and dashed forward.

"Wh-oo-p!" yelled the young Lipan, lashing his too spirited pony to a run. "Comanche dog! Red Wolf!"

There was no more to be said just then, however. The warm wind from the south seemed to whistle past him. Far to the right and far to the left yet other war-whoops were sounding. Not the whole band of Great Bear, he thought, but a sufficient number of their best mounted braves to 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 he had 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 at first, but in a few moments it was repeated more sonorously, and he wheeled 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 we were 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 of other men from whom he has been several days absent. A ride of half an hour is also to be measured by the speed of a horse, rather than by feet and inches. Very near them, therefore, if the distance were that of a swift horse on a run, a mule and his rider had halted on the northerly bank of a broad and very muddy river.

Directly across the river, on a low bluff of seemingly bare, sandy ground, there was a long range of low-built houses, part of them surrounded by a wall. They were altogether like a vast number of other Mexican-Spanish haciendas, or head-quarters of important country estates. If this, however, were the Hacienda Dolores, and if Castro's Lipans were there, they had raised over the largest of the adobe structures the eagle flag of Mexico. They had stationed uniformed sentinels here and there, and they had picketed horses, with saddles and 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 was all one quiver of rage and hate as he stared across the river. What if his entire plan was to be broken up and his red and white allies destroyed by this unexpected activity of his Mexican enemies? It was, moreover, a dangerous place of waiting for a solitary old man, to whom no quarter would be given if he were found there by Mexican soldiers.

"Too long! Too long!" he exclaimed. "They ought to be here. It is time!"

At that moment the mule under him stretched his neck and head to send forth a loud and seemingly uncalled-for bray. He had an abundance of ears, but what could he have heard? His white-headed master at first heard nothing at all, but then he drove his spurs into the sides of his trumpeting 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 the moment before, but now they pulled in their horses to look across the river, 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's a-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 have heard a number of Indians yell.

Red Wolf had ridden toward the bugle, not away from it. Hardly three minutes of so swift a run had been required to bring him out in full view of a strong party of mounted men in the brilliant uniform of the Mexican regular lancers. It was just as they obeyed the musical order to go forward at a charging gait. They were splendid horsemen and they moved together in perfect array, but it was not to make a dash upon one Indian boy. They had some reasons for expecting an encounter with the band of Lipans which had quartered, during several days, in and around the deserted hacienda. Here these were now, they thought, apparently ready to be pounced upon and overwhelmed, but this nearest brave upon the mustang showed no sign of hostility. On the contrary, he pulled in, almost halted, and waved his hand to them before pointing back, as if he would say, —

"Your enemies and mine are there. Be ready for them."

Swift orders rang along the charging column, but the solitary Indian wheeled out of their way, still making friendly signs, while over the swells of the prairie came the wild riders of whom he was evidently telling.

To him no more attention could be given just then, for there were more Comanches arriving than Bowie had believed at all likely. They had travelled faster and in better condition than he had calculated, and fully a third of Great Bear's warriors were within reaching distance.

It was a tremendous surprise all around. The fast-gathering braves had expected to close in upon a mere handful of tired-out Texans. The lancers had counted upon a brush with a small war-party of Lipans. Here the two forces were, however, face to face, altogether too near to escape a collision, unless one side or both should lose courage and run away.

Red Wolf had lashed his mustang to its best speed in wheeling from between the combatants, and he barely succeeded, for the Comanches were careering in various directions. It was not their custom to charge in close 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 spite of the surprise. He had his best braves with him, and they greatly outnumbered the Mexicans. The latter, indeed, rather than the red men, had stumbled into a bad place. They were brave enough, but the Comanches have been called by army officers "the best light cavalry in the world." Not one of them turned to follow Red Wolf any farther, and he did not wait to be followed. He looked behind him only to catch a fleeting view of a terribly confused skirmish. Both sides carried lances. At close quarters, the bows and arrows of the red men were even better weapons than were such firearms as were carried by the cavalry. It certainly took less time to load a bow-string than it did to 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 fast and that more Comanches were arriving. The one idea in his mind was to overtake his friends.

The river! The great, muddy Rio Grande! Here it was, with not a sign of Colonel Bowie's party upon its desolate bank.

Red Wolf halted in something like dismay, but it was no time for hesitation. His friends could not have gone down southward. Their errand would lead them up the river. He must hunt for them in that direction. Whether he should ever reach them or not was a difficult question, as his first glance across the river told him. It was not so much the flag on the hacienda. He was not afraid of a flag. But the river was shallow and fordable at this point, and a party of lancers had already made its way well out from the farther shore. They, as well as he, could hear the rattling reports and the fierce whooping from the battle that was going on, and they were making as much haste as the muddy bottom permitted. They uttered loud shouts when they caught sight of the one "brave" on the bank, and they fired shot after shot at him, but he was out of range of the short, smooth-bore carbines they 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 the idea that one enemy of his tribe was doing much harm to another. As an Indian, moreover, he could be proud of the prowess of a chief like Great Bear, almost as great a man, in his estimation, as Big Knife or as Castro.

It was a hot skirmish, but it was a short one. Half the lancers were down, but their charge had carried them through the unsteady swarm of their enemies. All that were left were keeping well together and were galloping toward the river, followed by flights of arrows. They would have been more closely followed by wild horsemen but for the fact that the Comanche ponies were at the end of a long, tiresome "push," while the animals of the cavalry were fresh. There was no such thing as catching up with them, and they reached the bank just as their comrades from the opposite shore were wading out.

There were loud shouts of explanation. There were signals to and from the 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 once more suffered severely in trying to get hold of him.

CHAPTER XII.

THE HORSE-THIEVES AND THE STAMPEDE

"Boys," said Colonel Bowie, sitting upon his panting horse and looking back down the river, "they saw us. I don't think we could make another run. Dismount!"

They were barely a mile and a half above the point where they had struck the Rio Grande, but it was time to give their horses a rest and to consider the situation. They had halted on the brow of a bluff, and they were looking in all directions. Not a man of them could guess from what quarter their next disaster might come.

"Big Knife wait," replied the Lipan chief. "Castro go back for Red Wolf."