The Trail-Hunter: A Tale of the Far West

His sister Ellen was the only member of his family for whom he experienced sympathy; and yet it was only with extreme reserve that he intrusted his boyish secrets to her – secrets which, during the last few days, had acquired an importance he did not himself suspect, but which his sister, with the innate intelligence of woman, had already divined.

Shaw, as we have said, was thinking. The young savage's indomitable nature revolted against an unknown force which had suddenly sprung up in his heart – mastered and subdued him in spite of all his efforts. He was in love! He loved, ignorant even of the meaning of the word love, which comprises in this nether world all earthly joy and suffering. Vainly he sought to explain his feelings; but no light flashed across his mind, or illumined the darkness of his heart. He loved without desire and without hope, involuntarily obeying that divine law which compels even the roughest man to seek a mate. He was dreaming of Doña Clara. He loved her, as he was capable of loving, with that passionate impetuosity, that violence of feeling, to which his uncultivated mind adapted him. The sight of the maiden caused him a strange trouble, which he did not attempt to account for. He did not try to analyse his feelings, for that would have been impossible; and yet at times he was a prey to cold and terrible fury, when thinking that the haughty maiden, who was even unconscious of his existence, would probably only spurn and despise him if she knew it. He was yielding to these crushing thoughts, when he suddenly felt a hand laid on his shoulder. On turning, Ellen stood before him, upright and motionless, like the white apparitions of the German legends. He raised his head, and bent an inquiring glance on his sister.

"You are not asleep, Ellen?"

"No," she answered in a voice soft as a bird's song. "Brother, my heart is sad."

"What is the matter, Ellen? Why not enjoy a few hours of that repose so necessary for you?"

"My heart is sad, I tell you, brother," she went on. "In vain do I seek sleep – it flies far from me."

"Sister, tell me the cause of your sufferings, and perhaps I can appease the grief that devours you."

"Can you not guess it?"

"I do not understand you."

She looked at him so sternly that he could not let his eyes fall.

"On the contrary, you understand me too well, Shaw," she said with a sigh. "Your heart rejoices at this moment at the misfortune of the woman you should defend."

The young man blushed.

"What can I do?" he murmured faintly.

"Everything, if you have the firm will," she exclaimed energetically.

"No," Shaw went on, shaking his head with discouragement; "the person of whom you speak is the old man's prisoner. I cannot contend against my father."

Ellen smiled contemptuously.

"You seek in vain to hide your thoughts from me," she said harshly. "I read your heart as an open book: your sorrow is feigned, and you really rejoice at the thought that in future you will constantly be by Doña Clara's side."

"I!" he exclaimed with an angry start.

"Yes, you only see in her captivity a means to approach her. Your selfish heart is secretly gladdened by that hope."

"You are harsh to me, sister. Heaven is my witness that, were it possible, I would at once restore her the liberty torn from her."

"You can if you like."

"No, it is impossible. My father watches too closely over his prisoner."

"He will not distrust you, but allow you to approach her freely."

"What you ask of me is impossible."

"Because you will not, Shaw. Remember that women only love men in proportion to the sacrifices they make for them: they despise cowards."

"But how to save her?"

"That is your affair, Shaw."

"At least give me some advice which will help me to escape from the difficult position in which I find myself."

"In such serious circumstances your heart must guide you, and you must only ask counsel of it."

"But the old one?" Shaw said hesitatingly.

"Our father will not know your movements. I take on myself to prevent him noticing them."

"Good!" the young man remarked, half convinced; "but I do not know where the maiden is hidden."

"I will tell you, if you swear to do all in your power to save her."

There was a moment of silence.

"I swear to obey you, Ellen. If I do not succeed in carrying the girl off, I will at any rate employ all my intellect to obtain that result. Speak, then, without fear."

"Doña Clara is confined at the Rancho del Coyote: she was intrusted to Andrés Garote."

"Ah, ah!" the young man said, as if speaking to himself, "I did not fancy her so near us."

"You will save her?"

"At all events I will try to free her from the hands of the man who guards her."

"Good!" the maiden remarked; "I now recognise you. Lose no time: my father's absence alarms me. Perhaps at this moment he is preparing a safer hiding place for his prisoner."

"Your idea is excellent, sister. Who knows whether it is not too late now to tear from the old man the prey he covets?"

"When do you intend to start?"

"At once: I have not a moment to lose. If the old man returned I should be compelled to remain here. But who will keep watch while my brothers sleep?"

"I will," the maiden answered resolutely.

"Whence arises the interest you feel in this woman, sister, as you do not know her?" the young man asked in surprise.

"She is a woman, and unhappy. Are not those reasons sufficient?"

"Perhaps so," Shaw remarked doubtfully.

"Child!" Ellen muttered, "Can you not read in your own heart, the motive of my conduct toward this stranger?"

The young savage started at this remark.

"It is true!" He exclaimed passionately. "Pardon me, sister! I am mad; but I love you, and you know me better than I do myself."

And rising hurriedly, he kissed his sister, threw his rifle over his shoulder, and ran off in the direction of Santa Fe.

When he had disappeared in the gloom, and the sound of his footsteps had died out in the distance, the girl fell on the ground, muttering in a low, sad voice:

"Will he succeed?"

CHAPTER XII

DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND

Red Cedar did not remain long under the effect of the startling insult he had received. Pride, wrath, and, before all, the desire to avenge himself restored his strength, and a few minutes after Don Pablo Zarate's departure the squatter had regained all his coolness and audacity.

"You see, señor padre," he said, addressing the monk, "that our little plans are known to our enemies; we must, therefore, make haste if we do not wish to see persons break in here, from whom it is of the utmost importance to conceal ourselves. Tomorrow night at the latest, perhaps before, we shall start. Do not stir from here till my return. Your face is too well known at Santa Fe for you to venture to show it in the streets without imprudence."

"Hum!" the monk muttered, "That demon, whom I fancied dead, is a rude adversary. Fortunately we shall soon have nothing more to fear from his father, for I hardly know how we should get out of it."

"If the son has escaped us," Red Cedar said with an ugly smile, "that is fortunately not the case with the father. Don't be alarmed; Don Miguel will cause us no further embarrassment."

"I wish it most earnestly, canarios! for he is a determined man; but I confess to you that I shall not be entirely at my ease till I have seen him fall beneath the bullets of the soldiers."

"You will not have long to wait. General Ventura has ordered me to go and meet the regiment of dragoons he expects, in order to hurry them on, and bring them into the town this very night, if possible. So soon as the governor has an imposing force at his disposal he will no longer fear a revolt on the part of the troops, and give the order for execution without delay."

"May Heaven grant it! But," he added with a sigh of regret, "what a pity that most of our scamps deserted us! We should have almost arrived at the placer by this time, and been safe from the vengeance of our enemies."

"Patience, señor padre; all is for the best, perhaps, trust to me. Andrés, my horse."

"You will start at once, then?"

"Yes. I recommend you to watch carefully over our prisoner."

The monk shrugged his shoulders.

"Our affairs are tolerably well embarrassed already; then why burden ourselves with a woman?"

The squatter frowned.

"That is my business," he exclaimed in a peremptory tone. "Keep all stupid observations to yourself. A thousand devils! I know what I am about. That woman will possibly prove our safeguard at a later date."

And mounting his horse, Red Cedar galloped out of Santa Fe.

"Hum!" Andrés Garote said as he watched him depart, "what a diabolical eye! Though I have known him several years, I never saw him like that before. How will all this end?"

Without further remarks he arranged matters in the rancho, repairing as well as he could the disorder caused by the previous struggle; then he took a look round him. The monk, with his elbows on the table and a cigarette in his mouth, was drinking the fluid left in the bottle, doubtless to console himself for the navajada with which Don Pablo had favoured him.

"Why, señor padre," the ranchero said in an insinuating voice, "do you know that it is hardly five o'clock?"

"Do you think so?" the other answered for the sake of saying something.

"Does not the time seem to you to go very slowly?"

"Extraordinarily so."

"If you liked we could easily shorten it."

"In what way?"

"Oh, for instance, with these."

And Andrés drew from his boot a pack of greasy cards, which he complacently spread out on the table.

"Ah! That is a good idea," the monk exclaimed with sparkling eyes. "Let us have a game of monte."

"At your orders."

"Don Andrés, you are a most worthy gentlemen. What shall we play for?"

"Ah, hang it! That is true; we must play for something," the ranchero said, scratching his head.

"The merest trifle, simply to render the game interesting."

"Yes, but to do that man must possess the trifle."

"Do not let that trouble you. If you permit me I will make you a proposal."

"Do so, señor. You are a remarkable clever man, and can have none but bright ideas."

The monk bowed to his flattering insinuation.

"This is it: we will play, if you like for the share of the gold we shall receive when we reach the placer."

"Done!" the ranchero shouted enthusiastically.

"Well," the monk said, drawing from his pocket a pack of cards no less dirty than the others, "we can at any rate kill time."

"What! You have cards too?" the ranchero remarked.

"Yes, and quite new, as you see." Andrés bowed with an air of conviction.

The game began at once, and soon the two men were completely absorbed in the combinations of the seis de copas, the as de bastos, the dos de oro, and the cuatro d'espadas. The monk, who had no necessity to feign at this moment, as he was in the company of a man thoroughly acquainted with him, yielded frenziedly to his ruling passion. In Mexico, and throughout Spanish America, the angelus rings at sunset. In those countries, where there is no twilight, night arrives without transition, so that ere the bell has done tinkling the gloom is dense. At the last stroke of the angelus the game ceased, as if by common agreement between the two men, and they threw their cards on the table.

Although Garote was a passed master in trickery, and had displayed all his science, he found in the monk so skilful an adversary that, after more than three hours of an obstinate struggle, they both found themselves as little advanced as at the outset. The monk, however, on coming to the rancho, had an object which Red Cedar was far from suspecting.

Fray Ambrosio rested his arms on the table, bent his body slightly forward, and while carelessly playing with the cards, which he amused himself by sorting, he said to the ranchero, as he fixed a scrutinising glance upon him, —

"Shall we talk a little, Don Andrés?"

"Willingly," the latter replied, who had partly risen, but now fell back on his chair.

By a secret foreboding Andrés Garote had guessed that the monk wished to make some important proposal to him. Hence, thanks to that instinctive intuition which rogues possess for certain things, the two men read each other's thoughts. Fray Ambrosio bit his lips, for the gambusino's intelligence startled him. Still the latter bent upon him a glance so full of stupid meaning, that he continued to make a confidant of him, as it were involuntarily.

"Señor Don Andrés," he said in a soft and insinuating voice, "what a happiness that your poor brother, on dying, revealed to me the secret of the rich placer, which he concealed even from yourself!"

"It is true," Andrés answered, turning slightly pale; "it was very fortunate, señor padre. For my part, I congratulate myself on it daily."

"Is it not so? For without it the immense fortune would have been lost to you and all else."

"It is terrible to think of."

"Well, at this moment I have a horrible fear."

"What is it, señor padre?"

"That we have deferred our departure too long, and that some of those European vagabonds we were speaking of just now may have discovered our placer. Those scoundrels have a peculiar scent for finding gold."

"Caray, señor padre!" Andrés said, striking the table with a feigned grief (for he knew very well what the monk was saying was only a clever way of attaining his real point), "that would drive me mad – an affair so well managed hitherto."

"That is true," Fray Ambrosio said in corroboration. "I could never console myself."

"Demonios! I have as great an interest in it as yourself, señor padre," the gambusino replied with superb coolness. "You know that an uninterrupted succession of unfortunate speculations robbed me of my fortune, and I hoped thus to regain it at a stroke."

At these words Fray Ambrosio had incredible difficulty in repressing a smile; for it was a matter of public notoriety that señor Don Andrés Garote was a lepero, who, as regarded fortune, had never possessed a farthing of patrimony; that throughout his life he had never been aught but an adventurer; and that the unlucky speculations of which he complained were simply an ill luck at monte, which had recently stripped him of 20,000 piastres, acquired Heaven alone knew how. But señor Don Andrés Garote was a man of unequalled bravery, gifted with a fertile and ready mind, whom the accidents of life had compelled to live for a lengthened period on the llanos (prairies), whose paths he knew as thoroughly as he did the tricks of those who dwelt on them. Hence, and for many other reasons, Andrés Garote was an invaluable comrade for Fray Ambrosio, who had also a bitter revenge to take on the monte table, because he pretended to place the most sincere faith in what it pleased his honourable mate to say touching his lost fortune.

"However," he said, after an instant's reflection, "supposing that the placer is intact, and that no one has discovered it, we shall have a long journey to reach it."

"Yes," the gambusino remarked, significantly; "the road is difficult and broadcast with perils innumerable."

"We must march with our chins on our shoulders, and finger on the rifle trigger – "

"Fight nearly constantly with wild beasts or Indians – "

"In a word, do you not believe that the woman Red Cedar has carried off will prove a horrid bore?"

"Dreadfully so," Andrés made answer, with an intelligent glance.

"What is to be done?"

"Hang it! That is difficult to say."

"Still we cannot run the risk, on account of a wretched woman, of having our hair raised by the Indians."

"That's true enough."

"Is she here?"

"Yes," the gambusino said, pointing to a door; "in that room."

"Hum!"

"You remarked – "

"Nothing."

"Could we not – "

"What?"

"It is perhaps difficult," Andrés continued, with feigned hesitation.

"Explain yourself."

The gambusino seemed to make up his mind.

"Suppose we restore her to her family?" he said.

"I have thought of that already."

"That is strange."

"It must be all managed very cleverly."

"And the relations pay a proper ransom."

"That is what I meant to say.".

There was a silence.

Decidedly these two honourable persons were made to understand one another.

"But who is to undertake this delicate mission?" asked the monk.

"I, con mil demonios!" the gambusino exclaimed, his eyes sparkling with greed at the thought of the rich ransom he would demand.

"But if Red Cedar were to find out," the monk remarked, "that we surrendered his prisoner?"

"Who will tell him?"

"I am sure I shan't."

"Nor I."

"It is very easy; the girl will have escaped."

"Quite true."

"Do not let us lose time, then. You have a horse?"

"I have two."

"Bravo! You will place Doña Clara on one, and mount the other yourself."

"And go straight to the Hacienda de la Noria."

"That is it. Don Pablo will be delighted to recover his sister, whom he expected never to see again, and will not haggle over the price he pays for her deliverance."

"Famous! In that way we run no risk of not reaching the placer, as our party will only consist of men."

"Excellently reasoned!"

Andrés Garote rose with a smile which would have caused the monk to reflect, had he seen it; but at the same moment the latter was rubbing his hands, saying in a low voice, and with a most satisfied air, —

"Now, my scamp, I've got you."

What secret thought possessed these two men, who were carrying on a mutual deceit, none save themselves could have said. The gambusino approached the door of the room where Doña Clara was confined, and put the key in the lock. At this moment two vigorous blows were dealt on the door of the rancho, which had been carefully bolted after Red Cedar's departure. The two accomplices started.

"Must I open?" Andrés asked.

"Yes," the monk answered; "hesitation or refusal might create alarm. In our position we must foresee everything."

The ranchero went to open the door, which the newcomer threatened to break in. A man walked in, who took a careful glance around, then doffed his hat and bowed. The confederates exchanged a glance of vexation on recognising him, for he was no other than Shaw, Red Cedar's youngest son.

"I am afraid I disturb you, gentlemen," the young man said, with an ironical smile.

"Not at all," Andrés made answer; "on the contrary, we are delighted to see you."

"Thanks!"

And the young man fell back into a butaca.

"You are very late at Santa Fe," the monk remarked.

"It is true," the American said, with some embarrassment; "I am looking for my father, and fancied I should find him here."

"He was so a few hours back, but he was obliged to leave us."

"Ah!"

This exclamation was rather drawn from the young man by the necessity he felt of replying, than through any interest he took in the information afforded him. He was evidently preoccupied; but Fray Ambrosio did not appear to notice it, as he continued, —

"Yes: it appears that his Excellency the Governor ordered your father to go and meet a regiment of dragoons intended to reinforce the garrison, and hasten its march."

"That is true; I forgot it."

The monk and the miner did not at all understand the American's conduct, and lost themselves in conjectures as to the reasons that brought him to the rancho. They guessed instinctively that what he said about his father was only a pretext or means of introduction; and that a powerful motive, he would not or dared not avow, had brought him. For his part, the young man, in coming to the Rancho del Coyote, where he knew that Doña Clara was imprisoned, expected to find Andrés alone, with whom he hoped to come to an understanding in some way or another. The presence of the monk disturbed all his plans. Still, time was slipping away he must make up his mind, and, before all, profit by Red Cedar's providential absence, which offered him an opportunity he could hardly dare to hope again.

CHAPTER XIII

A STORMY DISCUSSION

Shaw was not timid, as we have said – he ought rather be accused of the opposite excess; he was not the man, once his resolution was formed, to let anything soever turn him from it. His hesitation was not long; he suddenly rose, and violently stamping his rifle butt on the ground, looked at the two men, while saying in a firm voice, —

"Be frank, my presence here at this hour astonishes you, and you ask yourselves what cause can have brought me."

"Sir," the monk said, with a certain degree of hesitation rendered highly natural by the young man's tone.

"Pardon me," Shaw exclaimed, interrupting him, "the cause you will seek in vain. I will tell you: I have come to deliver Doña Clara."

"Can it be possible?" the two men exclaimed with stupefaction.

"It is so; whether you like it or not, I care little. I am the man to hold my own against both of you, and no one can prevent me restoring the maiden to her father, as I have resolved on doing."

"What do I hear?" said Fray Ambrosio.

"Hum!" the young man continued quickly, "Believe me, do not attempt any useless resistance, for I have resolved, if needs must, to pass over your bodies to success."

"But we have not the slightest wish – "

"Take care," he interrupted him in a voice full of menace and frowning, "I will only leave this house accompanied by her I wish to save."

"Sir," the monk remarked, in an authoritative voice which momentarily quelled the young savage, "two words of explanation."

"Make haste!" he answered, "For I warn you that my patience is exhausted."

"I do not insist on your listening any length of time. You have come here, you say, with the intention of delivering Doña Clara?"

"Yes," he answered impatiently, "and if you attempt to oppose it – "

"Pardon me," the monk interrupted, "such a determination on your part naturally surprises us."

"Why so?" the young man said, raising his head haughtily.

"Because," Fray Ambrosio answered tranquilly, "You are the son of Red Cedar, and it is at least I strange that – "

"Enough talking," Shaw exclaimed violently; "will you or not give me up her I have come to seek?"

"I must know, in the first place, what you intend doing with her.

"How does that concern you?"

"More than you imagine. Since that girl has been a prisoner I constituted myself – if not her guardian, for the dress I wear forbids that – her defender; in that quality I have the right of knowing for what reason you, the son of the man who tore her from her family, have come so audaciously to demand her surrender to you, and what your object is in acting thus?"

The young man had listened to those remarks with an impatience that became momentarily more visible; it could be seen that he made superhuman efforts to restrain himself. When the monk stopped, he looked at him for a moment with a strange expression, then walked up so close as almost to touch him, drew a pair of pistols from his girdle and pointed them at the monk.

"Surrender Doña Clara to me," he said, in a low and menacing voice.

Fray Ambrosio had attentively followed all the American's movements, and when the latter put the pistol muzzles to his chest, the monk, with an action rapid as lightning, also drew two pistols from his girdle, and placed them, on his adversary's chest. There was a moment of supreme expectation, of indescribable agony; the two men were motionless, face to face panting, each with his fingers on a trigger, pale, and their brows dank with cold perspiration. Andrés Garote, his lips curled by an ironical smile, and his arms crossed, carelessly leaned against a table, watching this scene which had for him all the attractions of a play.

All at once the door of the rancho, which had not been fastened again after the squatter's entry was violently thrown back and a man appeared. It was Father Seraphin. At a glance he judged the position and boldly threw himself between the foemen, hurling them back, but not uttering a word. The two men recoiled, and lowered their weapons, but continued to menace each other with their glances.