The Pirates of the Prairies: Adventures in the American Desert

"Who knows?" the pirate muttered.

"Where were you going?"

"To join my friends on the other bank of the river."

"What friends?"

"Friends of mine."

"I suppose so."

"The man is an idiot," Don Miguel said, with a shrug of his shoulders.

Valentine gave him a significant look.

"Do you think so?" he said.

As the hacendero made no reply, Valentine continued his cross-questioning.

"Who are the friends you were going to join?"

"I told you – hunters."

"Very well – but those hunters have a name."

"Have you not one, too?"

"Listen, scamp," Valentine said, whom the Pirate's evasions were beginning to make angry, "I warn you that, if you do not answer my questions simply, I shall be forced to blow out your brains."

Orson started back.

"Blow out my brains!" he exclaimed. "Nonsense, you would not dare."

"Why not, mate?"

"Because Red Cedar would avenge me."

"Ah ah, you know Red Cedar?"

"Of course I do, as I was going to join him."

"Hilloh!" Valentine said distrustfully. "Where, then?"

"Wherever he may be."

"That is true – then you know where Red Cedar is?"

"Yes."

"In that case you will guide us to him."

"I shall be delighted," the Pirate said quickly.

Valentine turned to his friend.

"This man is a traitor," he said. "He was sent to draw us into a snare, in which we will not let ourselves be caught. Curumilla, fasten a rope to a branch of that oak tree."

"What for?" Don Miguel asked.

"To hang this scamp, who fancies we are fools."

Orson trembled.

"One moment," he said.

"What for?" the hunter asked.

"Why, I do not wish to be hanged."

"And yet, it will happen to you within ten minutes, my good fellow – so you had better make up your mind to it."

"Not at all, since I offer to lead you to Red Cedar."

"Very good – but I prefer going alone."

"As you please. In that case, let me go."

"That is not possible, unfortunately."

"Why not?"

"I will tell you: because, if you were set at liberty, you would go straight and tell the man who sent you what you have seen, and I do not wish that. Besides, I know at present as well as you do, where Red Cedar is."

"Red Cedar does not hide himself, and can always be found."

"Very good. You have five minutes to recommend your soul to Heaven, and that is more than you deserve."

Orson understood from the hunter's accent that he was lost. Hence he made up his mind bravely.

"Bravo!" he said, "well-played."

Valentine looked at him.

"You are a plucky fellow," he said to him, "and I will do something for you. Curumilla, unfasten his arms."

The Indian obeyed.

"Look here," said Valentine, offering him a pistol. "Blow out your brains, it will be sooner over, and you will suffer less."

The bandit seized the weapon with a diabolical grin, and, with a movement swift as thought, fired at the hunter. But Curumilla was watching him, and cleft his skull with his tomahawk. The bullet whistled harmlessly past Valentine's ear.

"Thanks," said the bandit, as he rolled on the ground.

"What men!" Don Miguel exclaimed.

"Canarios, my friend," the general said, "you had a narrow escape."

The three men dug a hole into which they threw the bandit's body. The rest of the night passed without incident, and at daybreak the hunt recommenced. About midday, the hunters found themselves again on the river bank, and saw two Indian canoes drifting down with the current.

"Back, back!" Valentine suddenly shouted.

All lay down on the grass, and at the same instant bullets ricochetted from the rocks, and arrows whizzed through the leaves, but no one was wounded. Valentine disdained to reply.

"They are Apaches," he said. "Let us not waste our powder; besides, they are out of range."

They set out again. Gradually, the forest grew clearer, the trees became rare, and they at length entered a vast prairie.

"Stop," said Valentine, "we must be approaching. I believe we shall do well, now that we have an expanse before us, to examine the horizon."

He stood upright in his saddle, and began looking carefully around. Presently, he got down.

"Nothing," he said.

At this moment, he saw something glistening in the grass, on the river bank.

"What is that?" he asked himself, and bent down. But, instead of rising again, he bent lower still, and in a second turned to Curumilla.

"The moccasin," he said, sharply.

The Indian handed it to him.

"Look!" the hunter said.

At this spot the sand was damp, and, under a pile of leaves, there appeared clearly and distinctly the trace of a man's foot, with the toes in the water.

"They are only two hours ahead of us," said Valentine. "One of them lost a horse bell here."

"They have crossed the river," said Eagle-wing.

"That is easy to see," the general remarked.

Valentine smiled, and looked at Curumilla, who shook his head.

"No," the hunter said. "It is a trick, but they shall not catch me."

Making his comrades a signal not to stir, Valentine turned his back to the river, and walked rapidly toward a tree covered hill a short distance off.

"Come!" he shouted, so soon as he reached the top. Several dead trees lay scattered in an open space. Aided by Curumilla, Valentine began removing them. The Mexicans, whose curiosity was aroused to an eminent degree, also lent a hand.

In a few minutes, several trees were rolled on one side. Valentine then removed the leaves, and discovered the remains of a fire, with the ashes still warm.

"Come, come," he said, "Red Cedar is not so clever as I thought."

Don Miguel, his son, and the general were astounded, but the hunter only smiled.

"It is nothing," he said. "But the shadow of the sun is already lengthening on the horizon, within three hours, it will be night; so remain here. When the gloom is thick, we will start again."

They bivouacked.

"Now, sleep," Valentine bade them. "I will awake you when necessary, for you will have smart work tonight."

And joining example to precept, Valentine lay down on the ground, closed his eyes, and slept. At about an hour after sunset, he woke again; he looked around, his comrades were still asleep, but one was absent – Curumilla.

"Good," Valentine thought; "the chief has seen something, and gone to reconnoitre."

He had scarce finished this aside, when he noticed two shadows standing out vaguely in the night; the hunter darted behind a tree, and cocked his rifle. At the same instant, the cry of the swan was audible a short distance off.

"Halloh!" said Valentine, as he withdrew his rifle, "Can Curumilla have made another prisoner? Let me have a look."

A few minutes later, Curumilla arrived, closely followed by an Indian warrior, who was no other than Black Cat. On seeing him, Valentine repressed with difficulty a cry of surprise.

"My brother is welcome," he said.

"I was expecting my brother," the Apache chief said, simply.

"How so?"

"My brother is on the trail of Red Cedar?"

"Yes."

"Red Cedar is there," said Black Cat, pointing in the direction of the river.

"Far?"

"About half an hour."

"Good. How does my red brother know it?" the hunter asked, with ill-concealed suspicion.

"The great pale warrior is the brother of Black Cat; he saved his life. The redskins have a long memory. Black Cat assembled his young men, and followed Red Cedar to deliver him to his brother Koutonepi."

Valentine did not for an instant doubt the good faith of the Apache Chief; he knew how religiously the Indians keep their oaths. Black Cat had formed an alliance with him, and he could place implicit confidence in his words.

"Good," he said, "I will wake the pale warriors; my brother will guide us."

The Indian bowed and folded his arms on his chest. A quarter of an hour later, the hunters reached the encampment of the redskins, when they found that Black Cat had spoken the truth, for he had one hundred picked warriors with him, so cleverly concealed in the grass that ten paces off it was impossible to perceive them.

Black Cat drew Valentine aside, and led him a short distance from the bivouac.

"Let my brother look," he said.

The hunter then saw, a little way off, the fires of the gambusinos. Red Cedar had placed his camp against a hillside, which prevented the hunters seeing it. The squatter fancied he had thrown Valentine out, and this night, for the first time since he knew he was pursued, he allowed his people to light a fire.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE COMBAT

Red Cedar's camp was plunged in silence; all were asleep, save three or four gambusinos who watched over the safety of their comrades, and two persons who, carelessly reclining before a tent erected in the centre of the camp, were conversing in a low voice. They were Red Cedar and Fray Ambrosio.

The squatter seemed suffering from considerable anxiety; with his eye fixed on space, he seemed to be sounding the darkness and guessing the secrets which the night that surrounded him bore in its bosom.

"Gossip," the monk said, "do you believe that we have succeeded in hiding our trail from the white hunters?"

"Those villains are dogs at whom I laugh; my wife would suffice to drive them away with a whip," Red Cedar replied, disdainfully; "I know all the windings of the prairie, and have acted for the best."

"Then, we are at length freed from our enemies," the monk said, with a sigh of relief.

"Yes, gossip," the squatter remarked with a grin; "now you can sleep calmly."

"Ah," said the monk, "all the better."

At this moment, a bullet whistled over the Spaniard's head, and flattened against one of the tent poles.

"Malediction!" the squatter yelled, as he sprang up; "those mad wolves again. To arms, lads; here are the redskins."

Within a few seconds, all the gambusinos were alert and ambuscaded behind the bales that formed the wall of the camp. At the same moment, fearful yells, followed by a terrible discharge, burst forth from the prairie.

The squatter's band comprised about twenty resolute men, with the pirates he had enlisted. The gambusinos did not let themselves be terrified; they replied by a point-blank discharge at a numerous band of horsemen galloping at full speed on the camp. The Indians rode in every direction, uttering ferocious yells, and brandishing burning torches which they constantly hurled into the camp.

The Indians, as a general rule, only attack their enemies by surprise; when they have no other object in view but pillage, as soon as they are discovered and meet with a vigorous resistance, they cease a combat which has become objectless to them. But on this occasion the redskins seemed to have given up their ordinary tactics, so obstinately did they assail the gambusino intrenchments; frequently repulsed, they returned with renewed ardour, fighting in the open and trying to crush their enemies by their numbers.

Red Cedar, terrified by the duration of a combat in which his bravest comrades had perished, resolved to attempt a final effort, and conquer the Indians by daring and temerity. By a signal he collected his three sons around him, with Andrés Garote and Fray Ambrosio; but the Indians did not leave them the time to carry out the plan they had formed; they returned to the charge with incredible fury, and a cloud of incendiary arrows and lighted torches fell on the camp from all sides at once.

The fire added its horrors to those of the combat, and ere long the camp was a burning fiery furnace. The redskins, cleverly profiting by the disorder the fire caused among the gambusinos, escaladed the bales, invaded the camp, rushed on the whites, and a hand-to-hand fight commenced. In spite of their courage and skill in the use of arms, the gambusinos were overwhelmed by the masses of their enemies; a few minutes longer, and all would be over with Red Cedar's band.

The squatter resolved to make a supreme effort to save the few men still left him; taking Fray Ambrosio aside, who, since the beginning the action, had constantly fought by his side, he explained his intentions to him; and when he felt that the monk would certainly carry out his plans, he rushed with incredible fury into the thickest of the fight, and felling or stabbing the redskins who stood in his way, succeeded in entering the tent.

Doña Clara, with her head stretched forward, seemed to be anxiously listening to the noises outside. Two paces from her, the squatter's wife was dying; a bullet had passed through her skull. On seeing Red Cedar, the maiden folded her arms on her bosom, and wailed.

"Voto a Dios!" the brigand exclaimed. "She is still here. Follow me, señora, we must be off."

"No," the Spaniard answered, resolutely. "I will not go."

"Come, child, obey; do not oblige me to employ violence; time is precious."

"I will not go, I tell you," the maiden repeated.

"For the last time, will you follow me – yes or no?"

Doña Clara shrugged her shoulders. The squatter saw that any discussion was useless, and he must settle the question by force; so, leaping over the corpse of his wife, he tried to seize the girl. But the latter, who had watched all his movements, bounded like a startled fawn, drew a dagger from her breast, and with flashing eye, quivering nostrils, and trembling lips, she prepared to go through a desperate struggle.

There must be an end of this, so the squatter raised his sabre, and with the flat dealt such a terrible blow on the girl's delicate arm, that she let the dagger fall, and uttered a shriek of pain. But the unhappy girl stooped at once to pick up her weapon with her left hand; Red Cedar took advantage of this movement, bounded upon her, and made her a girdle of his powerful arms. The maiden, who had hitherto resisted in silence, shrieked with all the energy of despair —

"Help, Shaw, help!"

"Ah!" Red Cedar howled; "he, then, was the traitor! Let him come, if he dare."

And, raising the girl in his arms, he ran toward the entrance of the hut, but he fell back suddenly, with a ghastly oath: a man barred his passage, and that man was Valentine.

"Ah, ah!" the hunter said, with a sarcastic smile; "There you are again, Red Cedar. Caray, my master, you seem in a hurry."

"Let me pass," the squatter yelled, as he cocked a pistol.

"Pass?" Valentine repeated, with a laugh, while carefully watching the bandit's movements. "You are in a great haste to leave our company. Come, no threats, or I kill you like a dog."

"I shall kill you, villain," Red Cedar exclaimed, pulling with a convulsive movement the trigger of the pistol.

But, although the squatter had been so quick, Valentine was not less so; he stooped smartly to escape the bullet, which did not strike him, and raised his rifle, but did not dare fire, for Red Cedar had fallen back to the end of the tent, and employed the maiden as a buckler. At the sound of the shot Valentine's comrades hurried up to the tent, which was simultaneously invaded by the Indians.

The few gambusinos who survived their companions, about seven or eight, whom Fray Ambrosio had collected by the squatter's orders, guessing what was occurring, and desiring to aid their chief, crept stealthily up, and seizing the tent ropes, cut them all at once.

The mass of canvas, no longer supported, fell in, burying and dragging down with it all who were beneath it. There was a moment of terrible confusion among the Indians and hunters, which Red Cedar cleverly employed to step out of the tent and mount a horse Fray Ambrosio held in readiness for him. But, at the moment he was going to dash off, Shaw barred his passage.

"Stop, father," he shouted, as he boldly seized the bridle, "give me that girl."

"Back, villain, back," the squatter howled, grinding his teeth; "back!"

"You shall not pass," Shaw continued. "Give me Doña Clara!"

Red Cedar felt that he was lost: Valentine, Don Miguel, and their comrades, at length freed from the tent, were hurrying up at full speed.

"Wretch!" he exclaimed.

And, making his horse bound, he cut his son down with his sabre. The witnesses uttered a cry of horror, while the gambusinos, starting at full speed, passed like a whirlwind through the dense mass of foes.

"Oh!" Don Miguel shrieked, "I will save my daughter."

And leaping on a horse, he rushed in pursuit of the bandits; the hunters and Indians, leaving the burning camp to a few plunderers, also started after them. But suddenly an incomprehensible thing occurred: a terrible, superhuman noise was heard; the horses, going at full speed, stopped, neighing with terror; and the pirates, hunters, and redskins, instinctively raising their eyes to Heaven, could not restrain a cry of horror.

"Oh!" Red Cedar shouted, with an accent of rage impossible to render; "I will escape in spite of Heaven and Hell!"

And he buried his spurs in his horse's flanks; the animal gave vent to a snort of agony, but remained motionless.

"My daughter, my daughter!" Don Miguel shouted, striving in vain to reach the Pirate.

"Come and take her, dog," the bandit yelled; "I will only give her to you dead."

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE EARTHQUAKE

A frightful change had suddenly taken place in Nature. The heavenly vault had assumed the appearance of a vast globe of yellow copper: the pallid moon emitted no beams; and the atmosphere was so transparent, that the most distant objects were visible. A stifling heat weighed on the earth, and there was not a breath in the air to stir the leaves. The Gila had ceased to flow.

The hoarse roar which had been heard before was repeated with tenfold force: the river, lifted bodily, as if by a powerful and invisible hand, rose to an enormous height, and suddenly descended on the plain, over which it poured with incredible rapidity: the mountains oscillated on their base, hurling on to the prairie enormous blocks of rock, which fell with a frightful crash: the earth, opening on all sides, filled up valleys, levelled hills, poured from its bosom torrents of sulphurous water, which threw up stones and burning mud, and then began to heave with a slow and continuous movement.

"Terremoto! (earthquake)," the hunters and gambusinos exclaimed, as they crossed themselves and recited all the prayers that recurred to their mind.

It was, in truth, an earthquake – the most fearful scourge of these regions. The ground seemed to boil, if we may employ the expression – rising and falling incessantly, like the waves of the sea during a tempest. The bed of the rivers and streams changed at each instant, and gulfs of unfathomable depth opened beneath the feet of the terrified men.

The wild beasts, driven from their lairs and repulsed by the river, whose waters constantly rose, came, mad with terror, to join the men. Countless herds of buffaloes traversed the plain, uttering hoarse lowings, dashing against each other, turning back suddenly to avoid the abysses that opened at their feet, and threatening in their furious course to trample under everything that offered an obstacle.

The jaguars, panthers, cougars, grizzly bears, and coyotes, pell-mell with the deer, antelopes, elks, and asshatas, uttered howls and plaintive yells, not thinking of attacking each other, so thoroughly had fear paralysed their bloodthirsty instincts.

The birds whirled round, with wild croakings in the air impregnated with sulphur and bitumen, or fell heavily to the ground, stunned by fear, with their wings outstretched, and feathers standing on end.

A second scourge joined the former, and added, were it possible, to the horror of this scene. The fire lit in the gambusino camp by the Indians gradually gained the tall prairie grass; suddenly it was revealed in its majestic and terrible splendour, kindling all in its sparks with a whizzing sound.

A person must have seen a fire on the prairies of the Far West to form an idea of the splendid horror of such a sight. Virgin forests are burnt to the ground, their aged trees writhing, and uttering complaints and cries like human beings. The incandescent mountains resemble ill-omened light-houses, whose immense flames rise as spirals to the sky, which they colour for a wide distance with their blood-red hue.

The earth continued at intervals to suffer violent shocks; to the northwest the waters of the Gila were bounding madly forward; in the south-west, the fire was hurrying on with sharp and rapid leaps. The unhappy redskins, the hunters, and the pirates their enemies, saw with indescribable terror the space around them growing momentarily smaller, and every chance of safety cut off in turn.

In this supreme moment, when every feeling of hatred should have been extinguished in their hearts, Red Cedar and the hunters, only thinking of their vengeance, continued their rapid hunt, racing like demons across the prairie, which would soon doubtless serve as their sepulchre.

In the meanwhile, the two scourges marched towards one another, and the whites and redskins could already calculate with certainty how many minutes were left them, in their last refuge, ere they were buried beneath the waters, or devoured by the flames. At this terrible moment the Apaches all turned to Valentine as the only man who could save them; and at this supreme appeal, the hunter gave up for a few seconds his pursuit of Red Cedar.

"What do my brothers ask?" he said.

"That the great Hunter of the palefaces should save them," Black Cat said without hesitation.

Valentine smiled mournfully, as he took a look at all these men who awaited their safety from him.

"God alone can save you," he said, "for He is omnipotent; His hand has weighed heavily on us. What can I, a poor creature, do?"

"The pale hunter must save us," the Apache chief repeated.

The hunter gave a sigh.

"I will try," he said.

The Indians eagerly collected around him. The simple men considered that this hunter, whom they were accustomed to admire, and whom they had seen do so many surprising deeds, had a superhuman power at his command: they placed a superstitious faith in him.

"My brothers will listen;" Valentine went on: "only one chance of safety is left them – a very weak one, but it is at present the only one they can attempt. Let each take his arms, and without loss of time kill the buffaloes madly running about the prairie; their skins will serve as canoes to fly the fire that threatens to devour everything."

The Indians gave vent to a shout of joy and hope, and without further hesitation attacked the buffaloes, which, half mad with terror, let themselves be killed without offering the slightest resistance.

So soon as Valentine saw that his allies were following his advice, and were busily engaged in making their canoes, he thought once more of the pirates, who, for their part, had not remained idle. Directed by Red Cedar, they had collected some uprooted trees, attached them together with their lassos, and after this, forming a raft which would bear them all, they thrust it into the water, and entrusted themselves to the current.

Don Pablo, seeing his enemy on the point of escaping him a second time, did not hesitate to cover him with his rifle. But Andrés Garote had a spite on the Mexican, and taking advantage of the opportunity he quickly raised his rifle, and fired. The bullet, disturbed by the oscillation of the raft, did not hit the young man, but hit his rifle in his hands, at the moment he was pulling the trigger.

The pirates uttered a shout of triumph which was suddenly changed into a cry of anger. Señor Andrés Garote fell into their arms with a bullet through his chest, presented to him by Curumilla.

Just at this moment the sun rose gloriously on the horizon, lighting up the magnificent picture of travailing nature, and restoring a little courage to the men.

The redskins, after making, with their peculiar quickness and skill, some twenty canoes, were already beginning to launch them. The hunters tried to lasso the raft, and draw it to them, while the pirates on the other hand, employed the utmost efforts to keep it in the current. Curumilla had succeeded in throwing his lasso so as to entangle it in the trees, but Red Cedar cut it twice with his knife.

"We must finish with that bandit," Valentine said, "kill him at all risks."

"One moment, I implore you," Don Miguel entreated, "let me first speak to him, perhaps I may move his heart."