The Border Rifles: A Tale of the Texan War

This was all known about this individual at the moment when we brought him on the stage in so singular a fashion. The assistance he had given the monk was so contrary to all his habits, that he must have been suffering at the moment from one of his best attacks, to have consented not only to give such eager attention to one of his fellows, but also to waste so much time in listening to his lamentations and entreaties.

To finish the information we have to give about this person, we will add that no one knew whether he had a permanent abode; he was not known to have any woman to love, or any follower; he had ever been seen alone; and during the ten years he had roamed the desert in every direction, his countenance had undergone no change; he had ever the same appearance of old age and strength, the same long and white beard, and the same wrinkled face.

As we have said, the scalper rushed into the chaparral to discover who had given the signal that startled him; his researches were minute, but they produced no other result than that of enabling him to discover that he was not mistaken, and that a spy hidden in the bushes had really seen all that took place in the clearing, and heard all that was said.

Blue-fox, after summoning his comrades, cautiously retired, convinced that if he fell into the hands of the Scalper, he would be lost in spite of all his courage.

The latter returned thoughtfully to the side of the monk, whose praying still went on, and had assumed such proportions that it threatened to become interminable.

The Scalper looked for a moment at the Fray, an ironical smile playing round his pale lips the while, and then gave him a hearty blow with the butt of his rifle between the shoulders.

"Get up!" he said, roughly.

The monk fell on his hands, and remained motionless. Believing that the other intended to kill him, he resigned himself to his fate, and awaited the death-blow which, in his opinion, he must speedily receive.

"Come, get up, you devil of a monk!" the Scalper went on; "Have you not mumbled paternosters enough?"

Fray Ambrosio gently raised his head; a gleam of hope returned to him.

"Forgive me, Excellency," he replied; "I have finished; I am now at your orders; what do you desire of me?"

And he quickly sprung up, for there was something in the other's eye which told him that disobedience would lead to unpleasant results.

"That is well, scoundrel! You seem to me as fit to pull a trigger as to say a prayer. Load your rifle, for the moment has arrived for you to fight like a man, unless you wish to be killed like a dog."

The monk took a frightened glance around.

"Excellency," he stammered, with great hesitation, "is it necessary that I should fight?"

"Yes, if you wish to keep a whole skin; if you do not, why, you can remain quiet."

"But perhaps there is another mode?"

"What is it?"

"Flight, for instance," he said, insinuatingly.

"Try it," the other replied, with a grin.

The monk, encouraged by this semi-concession, continued, with slightly increased boldness —

"You have a very fine horse."

"Is it not?"

"Magnificent," Fray Antonio went on, enthusiastically.

"Yes, and you would not be vexed if I let you mount it, to fly more rapidly, eh?"

"Oh! do not think that," he said, with a gesture of denial.

"Enough!" the Scalper roughly interrupted; "Think of yourself, for your enemies are coming."

With one bound he was in the saddle, made his horse curvet, and hid himself behind the enormous stem of the mahogany tree.

Fray Antonio, aroused by the approach of danger, quickly seized his rifle, and also got behind the tree.

At the same moment a rather loud rustling was heard in the bushes, which then parted, and several men appeared.

They were about fifteen in number, and Apache warriors; in the midst of them were Blue-fox, John Davis, and his companions.

Blue-fox, though he had never found himself face to face with the White Scalper, had often heard him spoken of, both by Indians and hunters; hence, when he heard him pronounce his name, an indescribable agony contracted his heart, as he thought of all the cruelty to which his brothers had been victims from this man; and the thought of seizing him occurred to him. He hastened to give the signal agreed on with the hunters, and rushing through the chaparral with the velocity characteristic of Indians, went to the spot where his warriors were waiting, and bade them follow him. On his return, he met the two hunters who had heard the signal, and were hurrying to his help.

In a few words Blue-fox explained to them what was occurring. To tell the truth, we must confess that this confidence, far from exciting the warriors and hunters, singularly lowered their ardour, by revealing to them that they were about to expose themselves to a terrible danger, by contending with a man who was the more dangerous because no weapon could strike him; and those who had hitherto dared to assail him, had ever fallen victims to their temerity.

Still, it was too late to recoil, and flight was impossible; the warriors, therefore, determined to push on, though much against the grain.

As for the two hunters, if they did not completely share in the blind credulity of their comrades, and their superstitious fears, this fight was far from pleasing them. Still, restrained by the shame of abandoning men to whom they fancied themselves superior in intelligence, and even in courage, they resolved to follow them.

"Excellency!" the monk exclaimed in a lamentable voice, when he saw the Indians appear, "Do not abandon me."

"No, if you do not abandon yourself, scoundrel!" the Scalper answered.

On reaching the skirt of the clearing, the Apaches, following their usual tactics, sheltered themselves behind trees, so that this confined clearing, in which so many men were on the point of beginning an obstinate struggle, seemed absolutely deserted.

There was a moment of silence and hesitation. The Scalper at length decided on being the first to speak.

"Halloh!" he cried, "What do you want here?"

Blue-fox was going to answer, but John Davis prevented him.

"Leave him to me," he said.

Quitting the trunk of the tree behind which he was sheltered, he then boldly walked a few paces forward, and stopped almost in the centre of the clearing.

"Where are you, you who are speaking?" he asked in a loud and firm voice; "Are you afraid of letting yourself be seen?"

"I fear nothing," the squatter replied.

"Show yourself, then, that I may know you again," John said impudently.

Thus challenged, the Scalper came up within two paces of the hunter.

"Here I am," he said, "What do you want of me?"

Davis let the horse come up without making any movement to avoid it.

"Ah," he said, "I am not sorry to have had a look at you."

"Is that all you have to say to me?" the other asked gruffly.

"Hang it, you are in a tremendous hurry! Give me time to breathe, at any rate."

"A truce to jests, which may cost you dearly; tell me at once what your proposals are – I have no time to lose in idle talk."

"How the deuce do you know that I have proposals to make to you?"

"Would you have come here without?"

"And I presume that you are acquainted with these proposals?"

"It is possible."

"In that case, what answer do you give me?"

"None."

"What, none!"

"I prefer attacking you."

"Oh, oh, you have a tough job before you; there are eighteen of us, do you know that?"

"I do not care for your numbers. If there were a hundred of you, I would attack you all the same."

"By Heaven! For the rarity of the fact, I should be curious to see the combat of one man against twenty."

"You will do so ere long."

And, while saying this, the Scalper pulled his horse back several paces.

"One moment, hang it," the hunter exclaimed sharply; "let me say a word to you."

"Say it."

"Will you surrender?"

"What?"

"I ask you if you will surrender."

"Nonsense," the Scalper exclaimed with a grin; "you are mad. I surrender! It is you who will have to ask mercy ere long."

"I would not believe it, even if you killed me."

"Come, return to your shelter," the Scalper said with a shrug of his shoulders; "I do not wish to kill you defencelessly."

"All the worse for you, then," the hunter said; "I have warned you honourably, now I wash my hands of it; get out of it as you can."

"Thanks," the Scalper answered energetically; "but I am not yet in so bad a state as you fancy."

John Davis contented himself with shrugging his shoulders, and returned slowly to his shelter in the forest, whistling Yankee Doodle.

The Scalper had not imitated him; although he was perfectly well aware that a great number of enemies surrounded him and watched over his movements, he remained firm and motionless in the centre of the clearing.

"Hola!" he shouted in a mocking voice, "You valiant Apaches, who hide yourselves like rabbits in the shrubs, must I come and smoke you out of your holes in order to make you show yourselves? Come on, if you do not wish me to believe you old cowardly and frightened squaws."

These insulting words raised to the highest pitch the exasperation of the Apache warriors, who replied by a prolonged yell of fury.

"Will my brothers allow themselves any longer to be mocked by a single man?" Blue-fox exclaimed; "Our cowardice causes his strength. Let us rush with the speed of the hurricane on this genius of evil; he cannot resist the shock of so many renowned warriors. Forward, brothers, forward! To us be the honour of having crushed the implacable foe of our race."

And uttering his war-cry, which his comrades repeated, the valiant Chief rushed upon the Scalper, resolutely brandishing his rifle over his head; all the warriors followed him.

The Scalper awaited them without stirring; but so soon as he saw them within reach, drawing in the reins, and pressing his knees, he made his noble stud leap into the thick of the Indians. Seizing his rifle by the barrel, and employing it like a club, he began smiting to the right and left with a vigour and rapidity that had something supernatural about them.

Then a frightful medley commenced; the Indians rushed on this man, who, being a skilful horseman, made his steed go through the most unexpected curvets, and by the rapidity of his movements prevented the enemy leaping on his bridle and stopping him.

The two hunters at first remained quiet, convinced that it was impossible for a single man even to resist for a few moments such numerous and brave foes; but they soon perceived, to their great amazement, that they were mistaken; several Indians were already stretched on the ground, their skulls split by the Scalper's terrible club, all whose blows went home.

The hunters then began changing their opinion as to the result of the fight, and wished to help their comrades, but their rifles were useless to them in the continued changes of the scene of action, and their bullets might as easily have struck friend as foe; hence they threw away their rifles, drew their knives, and hurried to the assistance of the Apaches, who were already beginning to give way.

Blue-fox, dangerously wounded, was lying in a state of insensibility. The warriors, still on their legs, were beginning to think of a retreat, and casting anxious glances behind them.

The Scalper still fought with the same fury, mocking and insulting his enemies; his arm rose and fell with the regularity of a pendulum.

"Ah, ah!" he exclaimed, on noticing the hunters; "So you want your share. Come on, come on."

The latter did not allow it to be repeated, but rushed wildly upon him.

But they fared badly; John Davis, struck by the horse's chest, was hurled twenty feet, and fell to the ground; at the same instant his comrade's skull was broken, and he expired without a groan.

This last incident gave the finishing stroke to the Indians, who, unable to overcome the terror with which this extraordinary man inspired them, began flying in all directions with yells of terror.

The Scalper gave a glance of triumph and satisfied hatred at the sanguinary arena, where a dozen bodies lay stretched out, and urging his horse on, he caught up a fugitive, lifted him by the hair, and threw him over his saddle-bow, and disappeared in the forest with a horrible grin.

Once again the Scalper had opened a bloody passage for himself.

As for Fray Antonio, so soon as he saw that the fight had begun, he thought it needless to await its issue; he, therefore, took advantage of the opportunity, and gliding gently from tree to tree, he effected a skilful retreat and got clear off.

CHAPTER XXIV

AFTER THE FIGHT

For more than half an hour the silence of death hovered over the clearing, which offered a most sad and lugubrious aspect through the fight we described in the preceding chapter.

At length John Davis, who in reality had received no serious wound, for his fall was merely occasioned by the shock of the Scalper's powerful horse, opened his eyes and looked around him in amazement; the fall had been sufficiently violent to cause him serious bruises, and throw him into a deep fainting fit; hence, on regaining consciousness, the American, still stunned, did not remember a single thing that had happened, and asked himself very seriously what he had been doing to find himself in this singular situation.

Still, his ideas grew gradually clearer, his memory returned, and he remembered the strange and disproportioned fight of one man against twenty, in which the former remained the victor, after killing and dispersing his assailants.

"Hum!" he muttered to himself, "Whether he be man or demon, that individual is a sturdy fellow."

He got up with some difficulty, carefully feeling his paining limbs; and when he was quite assured he had nothing broken, he continued with evident satisfaction —

"Thank Heaven! I got off more cheaply than I had a right to suppose, after the way in which I was upset." Then he added, as he gave a glance of pity to his comrade, who lay dead near him; "That poor Jim was not so lucky as I, and his fun is over. What a tremendous machete stroke he received! Nonsense!" he then said with the egotistic philosophy of the desert; "We are all mortal, each has his turn; to-day it's he, to-morrow I, so goes the world."

Leaning on his rifle, for he still experienced some difficulty in walking, he took a few steps on the clearing in order to convince himself by a conclusive experiment that his limbs were in a sound state.

After a few moments of an exercise that restored circulation to his blood and elasticity to his joints, completely reassured about himself, the thought occurred to him of trying whether among the bodies lying around him any still breathed.

"They are only Indians," he muttered, "but, after all, they are men; although they are nearly deprived of reason, humanity orders me to help them; the more so, as my present situation has nothing very agreeable about it, and if I succeed in saving any of them, their knowledge of the desert will be of great service to me."

This last consideration determined him on helping men whom probably without it he would have abandoned to their fate, that is to say, to the teeth of the wild beasts which, attracted by the scent of blood, would have certainly made them their prey after dark.

Still it is our duty to render the egotistic citizen of the United States the justice of saying that, so soon as he had formed this determination, he acquitted himself conscientiously and sagaciously of his self-imposed task, which was easy to him after all; for the numerous professions he had carried on during the course of his adventurous life had given him a medical knowledge and experience which placed him in a position to give sick persons that care their condition demanded.

Unfortunately, most of the persons he inspected had received such serious wounds that life had long fled their bodies, and help was quite unavailing.

"Hang it, hang it!" the American muttered at every corpse he turned over, "These poor savages were killed by a master-hand. At any rate they did not suffer long, for with such fearful wounds they must have surrendered their souls to the Creator almost instantaneously."

He thus reached the spot where lay the body of Blue-fox, with a wide gaping wound in his chest.

"Ah, ah! Here is the worthy Chief," he went on. "What a gash! Let us see if he is dead too."

He bent over the motionless body, and put the blade of his knife to the Indian's lips.

"He does not stir," he continued, with an air of discouragement; "I am afraid I shall have some difficulty in bringing him round."

In a few minutes, however, he looked at the blade of his knife and saw that it was slightly tarnished.

"Come, he is not dead yet; so long as the soul holds to the body, there is hope, so I will have a try."

After this aside, John Davis fetched some water in his hat, mixed a small quantity of spirits with it, and began carefully laving the wound; this duty performed, he sounded it and found it of no great depth, and the abundant loss of blood had in all probability brought on the state of unconsciousness. Reassured by this perfectly correct reflection, he pounded some oregano leaves between two stones, made a species of cataplasm of them, laid it on the wound, and secured it with a strip of bark; then unclenching the wounded man's teeth with the blade of his knife, he thrust in the mouth of his flask, and made him drink a quantity of spirits.

Success almost immediately crowned the American's tentatives, for the Chief gave vent to a deep sigh, and opened his eyes almost instantaneously.

"Bravo!" John exclaimed, delighted at the unhoped for result he had achieved. "Courage, Chief, you are saved. By Jove! You may boast of having come back a precious long distance."

For some minutes the Indian remained stunned, looking around him absently, without any consciousness of the situation in which he was, or of the objects that surrounded him.

John attentively watched him, ready to give him help again, were it necessary; but it was not so. By degrees the Redskin appeared to grow livelier; his eyes lost their vacant expression, he sat up and passed his hand over his dank brow.

"Is the fight over?" he asked.

"Yes," John answered, "in our complete defeat; that was a splendid idea we had of capturing such a demon."

"Has he escaped, then?"

"Most perfectly so, and without a single wound, after killing at least a dozen of your warriors, and cleaving my poor Jim's skull down to the shoulders."

"Oh!" the Indian muttered hoarsely, "He is not a man, but the spirit of evil."

"Let him be what he likes," John exclaimed, energetically; "I intend to fight it out some day, for I hope to come across this demon again."

"May the Wacondah preserve my brother from such a meeting, for this demon would kill him."

"Perhaps so; as it is, if he did not do so to-day, it was no fault of his, but let him take care; we may some day stand face to face with equal weapons, and then – "

"What does he care for weapons? Did you not see that they have no power over him, and that his body is invulnerable?"

"Hum! That is possible; but for the present let us leave the subject and attend to matters that affect us much more closely. How do you find yourself?"

"Better, much better; the remedy you have applied to my wound does me great good; I am beginning to feel quite comfortable."

"All the better; now try to rest for two or three hours, while I watch over your sleep; after that, we will consult as to the best way of getting out of this scrape."

The Redskin smiled on hearing this remark.

"Blue-fox is no cowardly old woman whom a tooth-ache or ear-ache renders incapable of moving."

"I know that you are a brave warrior, Chief; but nature has limits, which cannot be passed, and, however great your courage and will may be, the abundant haemorrhage which your wound has caused you must have reduced you to a state of extreme weakness."

"I thank you, my brother; those words come from a friend; but Blue-fox is a Sachem in his nation, death alone can render him unable to move. My brother will judge of the Chief's weakness."

While uttering these words, the Indian made a supreme effort; fighting against pain, with the energy and contempt of suffering that characterize the Red race, he succeeded in rising, and not only stood firmly on his feet, but even walked several yards without assistance, or the slightest trace of emotion appearing on his face.

The American regarded him with profound admiration; he could not imagine, though he himself justly enjoyed a reputation for braver, that it was possible to carry so far the triumph of moral over physical force.

The Indian smiled proudly on reading in the American's eyes the astonishment his performance caused him.

"Does my brother still believe that Blue-fox is so weak?" he asked him.

"On my word, Chief, I know not what to think; what you have just done confounds me; I am prepared to suppose you capable of accomplishing impossibilities."

"The Chiefs of my nation are renowned warriors, who laugh at pain, and for them suffering does not exist," the Redskin said, proudly.

"I should be inclined to believe it, after your way of acting."

"My brother is a man; he has understood me. We will inspect together the warriors lying on the ground, and then think of ourselves."

"As for your poor comrades, Chief, I am compelled to tell you that we have no occasion to trouble ourselves about them, for they are all dead."

"Good! they fell nobly while fighting; the Wacondah will receive them into his bosom, and permit them to hunt with him on the happy prairies."

"So be it!"

"Now, before all else, let us settle the affair we began this morning, and which was so unexpectedly broken off."

John Davis, in spite, of his acquaintance with desert life, was confounded by the coolness of this man, who, having escaped death by a miracle, still suffering from a terrible wound, and who had regained possession of his intellectual faculties only a few moments before, seemed no longer to think of what had occurred, considered the events to which he had all but fallen a victim as the very natural accidents of the life he led, and began again, with the greatest freedom of mind, a conversation interrupted by a terrible fight, at the very point where he left it. The fact was, that, despite the lengthened intercourse the American had hitherto had with the Redskins, he had never taken the trouble to study their character seriously, for he was persuaded, like most of the whites indeed, that these men are beings almost devoid of intelligence, and that the life they lead places them almost on a level with the brute, while, on the contrary, this life of liberty and incessant perils renders danger so familiar to them that they have grown to despise it, and only attach a secondary importance to it.

"Be it so," he said presently; "since you wish it, Chief, I will deliver the message intrusted to me for you."

"My brother will take a place by my side."

The American sat down on the ground by the Chief, not without a certain feeling of apprehension through his isolation on this battle-field strewn with corpses; but the Indian appeared so calm and tranquil that John Davis felt ashamed to let his anxiety be seen, and affecting carelessness he was very far from feeling, he began to speak.

"I am sent to my brother by a great warrior of the Palefaces."

"I know him; he is called the Jaguar. His arm is strong, and his eye flashes like that of the animal whose name, he bears."

"Good! The Jaguar wishes to bury the hatchet between his warriors and those of my brother, in order that peace may unite them, and that, instead of fighting with each other, they may pursue the buffalo on the same hunting grounds, and avenge themselves on their common enemies. What answer shall I give the Jaguar?"

The Indian remained silent for a long time; at length he raised his head.

"My brother will open his ears," he said, "a Sachem is about to speak."

"I am listening," the American answered.

The Chief went on —

"The words my bosom breathes are sincere – the Wacondah inspires me with them; the Palefaces, since they were brought by the genius of evil in their large medicine-canoes to the territories of my fathers, have ever been the virulent enemies of the Red men; invading their richest and most fertile hunting grounds, pursuing them like wild beasts whenever they met with them, burning their callis, and dispersing the bones of their ancestors to the four winds of Heaven. Has not such constantly been the conduct of the Palefaces? I await my brother's answer."