by Zane Grey
“What I had to do then was the wust of the job, an’ thet was get to the fort an’ report in time to save Denver’s life. I made it in fourteen hours. The major sent soldiers an’ a six-mule wagon post-haste to Banks’ place.
“Then he says: ‘Jim, what you been up to? You had orders to report on fifteen Indians.’
“Wal, I told him.
“‘See here, scout, air you drunk or crazy? You’re so cut up you’re out of your head. You an’ Denver never tackled fifteen Kiowas all by yourself.’
“I reached round my belt, untied the string with the fifteen scalps, an’ I says, ‘Major, count ’em yourself.’
“Greer took one look, an’ with a crooked face he says: ‘I’ll take your word, Jim. I jest wanted a report to send to Washington.’
“‘Wal, Major,’ I says, ‘I don’t care a damn what they think in Washington, but I want a doctor now.’... Next evenin’ the soldiers fetched Denver in, an’ we lay side by side in the hospital. I was up in a few weeks, but thet Kiowa left his work on me for life.” Here Baker swept aside his grizzled locks and exposed a red scar fully five inches long on his neck. “Denver lay in bed five months an’ all but croaked, an’ it was longer before he could fork a hoss. The quartermaster bought thet stock I saved, an’ me an’ Denver got fourteen hundred an’ eighty dollars each out of it.”
“Well, Buff, what did you think of Jim Baker’s story?” asked Kit Carson, with a smile, seeing Clint’s jaw had dropped.
“Aw! I — I don’t know,” replied Clint, expelling a deep breath.
“True as gospel, Buff. I happen to know,” said Carson. “Fact is, lad, truth is often stranger them fiction on this frontier.”
At this period Kit Carson was about forty-seven or eight years old, rather slightly built compared with scouts like Baker and Curtis, but the muscles rippled on him. He had a clean-shaven, fair face, keen light eyes that held a wonderful piercing quality, and altogether he looked what he was — the greatest frontiersman of the West.
Clint stayed several days at Carson’s house, a long, low, wide-porched, whitewashed adobe structure. Carson’s wife was a Spanish woman, dark-eyed and sweet-voiced, who took a strange liking to Clint and called him Senor Buff, much to Clint’s pleasure.
Kit Carson liked to talk, at least to Clint, of his wonderful exploring trips with Frémont, the Pathfinder, whose name was inseparably linked with the West. He mentioned the first trip he made with Frémont, in 1842, when they climbed to the Wind River Range. He remembered most vividly the capsizing of Frémont’s rubber boat in the rapids of the Platte River.
About the second of Frémont’s expeditions Carson had a great deal more to say. The purpose of the government was to explore the country beyond the Rockies just south of the Columbia River.
In 1843, Kit Carson joined this expedition, with his friend Maxwell, on the Arkansas River, and under Carson’s guidance they successfully consummated fourteen months of exploration that wholly changed the attitude of the government toward the West and opened the way for the settlers. Frémont’s ambition then was to acquaint the East, and the whole world with the wonders of California.
“Buff, what do you think?” asked Carson. “Frémont told me Daniel Webster did not approve of the takin’ of Texas into the Union, but had a strong leanin’ for Sim Francisco Bay an’ California. He said England would not agree to Mexico cedin’ California to the U.S. Boy, I shore could tell you a lot of history.... It was in August, 1845, that I met Frémont’s third expedition, one purpose of which was to explore California an’ keep England from gettin’ it away from Mexico. There were sixty men. I had my friends again.... Well, lad, you know, of course, how Frémont made conquest of California an’ how jealous army officers run him out of the army in disgrace. That’s history. They were little men an’ Frémont was big. Of till the men I’ve known an’ fought with he had the most unconquerable spirit.”
CHAPTER 9
CLINT, BACK AT Santa Fé, heard several times about mountain lions, or panthers and cougars, as some hunters called them, that had been prowling around where the stock was feeding. This was exciting news to him and Tom Sidel, but they were not permitted to go alone to hunt.
About four inches of snow had fallen, making the trailing of game easy and rapid. Belmet gathered a party of freighters to hunt the lions, and took Clint and Tom with them.
The hunting party crossed the Pecos, and before they saw any lion tracks they jumped a bunch of big gray-blue timber wolves. There were about fifteen of them, each as tall as a yearling calf, with heavy fur and bushy tails curling up over their backs. They stared at the hunters for a moment, then loped up a gulch. They had been eating from a cow which they had killed.
After trailing the wolves for five miles, one of the hunters advised a cut across to head them off, and he took a half dozen of the others, including Clint and Tom. They rounded a thick clump of cedars to run fairly into the pack. What yelling and shooting! Clint, as usual, had been on the alert out in front, and he got in his first shot a fraction of a second before the others. He downed one of the leaders, and had another shot besides. Seven wolves in all fell to the guns of the freighters. They skinned the beasts right on the spot. In Kansas City a wolf pelt brought fourteen dollars.
It might have been that the return of the hunters with seven fine wolf hides stimulated an idea in Captain Couch’s mind. At any rate, he called on Belmet and said, “Jim, how’d you an’ Buff like to risk a little money?”
“What on, Cap?” asked Belmet.
“Wal, I was over to the fort today, an’ learned a troop is ridin’ up to Raton Pass. There are some villages of Comanches an’ Utes. We might ride up an’ drop in friendly like on the Injuns. You see, all the fur hunters come in about May. Now if we’d offer them cash for pelts I think they’d like it better than tradin’ at the store for supplies. We’d just about get all their trade.”
“Good idea, Cap, but have we enough money? I’ve only twenty-five hundred odd. How much have you, Clint?”
“About a thousand dollars saved.”
“Thet’s fine. What with mine an’ yours an’ some of the other fellars we’ll let in on the deal, bet we make a haul.”
Two days later Couch, Belmet, and severed others rode away with the soldiers. Clint begged hard to be taken, but unavailingly. They returned in a couple of weeks, elated over promises from Chief Lone Wolf and Chief Black Kettle to fetch down all their furs and pelts and buffalo robes the latter part of April.
The Indians, as usual, kept their word, and a few of them at a time brought in their winter supply and sold to Couch. Presently the traders at the store discovered what was going on, and in high dudgeon they went to the colonel. He answered their complaint in succinct terms: “I can’t stop them. It’s none of my business. If they have the cash to buy furs, no one can prevent it.” Thereafter a great deal of money found its way into Couch’s hands. Where the money came from was a secret. The officers at the posts were not permitted to do any kind of trading with the Indians. But it was significant that when the caravan was loaded with a large and magnificent stock of furs, it was given an escort of ninety-eight soldiers under Captain Howland and Lieutenant Wilcox, clear through to Westport.
The fur company made a good many complaints and took the matter to Fort Leavenworth military headquarters of the Southwest. The general in command sent officers to investigate, but they could not learn anything from Couch or his freighters.
“How’d you come to have such a large escort?” Couch was asked.
“I never turn a wheel without a troop.”
“Whom did you ask?”
“I didn’t ask anybody.”
“You were hauling at your own risk?”
“Yes, sir. But half our freight was protected by Aull an’ Company.”
The officers had to depart without giving any satisfaction to the fur company. Captain Couch, Belmet, and the others regarded it as a perfectly honest transaction and a far fairer deal to the Indian
s.
Clint found himself in possession of ten thousand dollars where formerly he had owned only one. He felt rich. At this rate he would have money enough some day to go into ranching or own a trading store. That brought to mind May Bell, his little friend, who had been carried off by Indians. Clint seldom thought of her now. It seemed long ago. He could remember her eyes, dark, bright, following him, and he sighed with the sorrow of it.
Captain Couch, Belmet, and the other freighters who had profited by the fur deal traveled to St. Louis by boat to invest all their money in merchandise to trade to the Indians, white trappers, and hunters. Clint had money to invest, too, and so they took him along. St. Louis was a big place. Clint had so long been used to quiet and the open spaces that he was glad to get back on the river boat. He enjoyed the ride up the swift, muddy stream.
On the vessel Captain Couch ran into Maxwell, the frontiersman so widely known; and through this circumstance Clint met him.
“Are you the Maxwell who went with Kit Carson on Frémont’s explorin’ trips?” asked Clint, eagerly.
“I sure am, young fellar. How’d you know?” replied Maxwell, a splendid type of Westerner, who, though past fifty, stood erect and virile, his dark face a record of his adventurous life.
“Kit Carson told me himself,” replied Clint, with pride.
“Say, do you know Kit Carson?”
“I’m a friend of his.”
“Then you’re one of mine. You’ll be welcome at my ranch any time, to stay a day or all winter. I’ve got ten thousand head of horses. You can have your pick.”
When they arrived at Kansas City, Maxwell, who had bought a heavy supply of goods, engaged Couch to haul it for him. Early in August the caravan was loaded and ready. But an escort could not be secured. Couch, confident with his ninety-three tried and proven freighters, decided to start without one.
Couch had eighty-seven wagons loaded with his freight; Maxwell had forty-four, heavily packed. The caravan then consisted of one hundred and thirty-one wagons, four hundred and sixty-four oxen, forty horses, and six mules.
Across the Kansas River, near Smoky Hill, they sighted the first buffalo, and therefore encamped, while twenty hunters, followed by a wagon, went out after meat. They killed five, and then desisted because a scout had discovered a party of Indians near the head of the herd.
The stock was kept in close all night, but as the grass grew richly the animals fared well. Starting in good time the next morning, the freighters got away from that camp without sighting the Indians again.
Thereafter they drove along the old and familiar trail day by day, with the vast and sublime monotony of the plains on all sides, from rosy sunrise to golden sunset, on and on over the waving, gray and green, flower-dotted prairie. They came at last to the rising ground, to the Cimmaron Crossing, proceeded along the dry trail to Sand Creek, Willow Bar, McNess Spring, and so on to Round Mount, Rock Creek, and at last Point of Rocks.
The date was the 19th of November, and the camp site a favored one. Large rocks stood up twenty feet or more, from the center of which gushed a cold spring. Wood was abundant, but the grass near camp had been grazed off for a mile or more. The freighters did not like to send the stock so far, but there was no alternative. Twenty-five men, among them Belmet and John Sidel, were sent out to guard the animals and fetch them in before dark.
Broken clouds in the west obscured the setting sun, but through the rifts poured a golden effulgence that painted the prairie. There was still warmth in the air. Peace and quiet seemed to reign over the plains. Here and there, around their smoking camp fires, freighters sang and whistled at their tasks.
Clint was peeling potatoes, a job he appeared forever to have assigned him, and which he hated. “Reckon I’ve peeled nine million potatoes for this darn outfit!” he grumbled.
Presently Jack came running up to him, hair ruffled and bristling, eyes bright and knowing. He barked and bounded away, only to return.
“Now what ails you?” demanded Clint. Jack repeated the performance. Clint became uneasy at once. There was one thing he hated worse than peeling potatoes.
“Lie down, you scallywag,” ordered Clint, trying to hope against hope. But Jack would not settle down. Clint sat there tingling. Then he heard a rifle-shot, far off. Leaping up, he ran like a deer to Couch’s camp.
“Captain — my dog — smells Indians,” he panted. “An’ I heard a shot.”
Couch did not need to be told twice. He got up and shouted: “Ho, men! Be on the lookout.”
He climbed a wagon, stood on the seat, and leveled his glass. Almost instantly he uttered a loud curse and dropping the glass on the seat, leaped sheer off to the ground.
“COMANCHES!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “They’ve cut our guards off from camp! Grab your guns!”
Pandemonium broke loose inside the circle of wagons. Fifty and more men resembled a swarm of angry ants dashing here and there around an antheap. They made a rush for horses, only to realize that there were scarcely fifteen horses left in the inclosure. The guards had driven out almost all of the stock to feed. Couch’s mighty oath rolled away over the plain.
“Hell to pay, boys,” he shouted, gnashing his teeth, his face flashing dark. “We’re ketched bad.... Saddle up. Some of us will go.... Rest of you stick here.”
Clint had stood rooted to the spot. He saw the men running, he heard the hoarse shouts and orders. He watched two freighters trying to get on one horse. In a few moments fifteen riders were tearing out of the opening between the wagons, with Couch leading. They turned away out of sight.
Clint’s fear of his father’s peril had paralyzed him, but now he broke out of the clamping spell, and leaping on the wagon seat he scanned the plain. A mile or more out the waving golden grass showed a dark blot of horses, riders, oxen, in a confused moving mass, working to the northward. The Comanches must have been hidden down in the river bottom in the brush, and at an opportune time they had cut off Couch’s guards from the wagon-train, had surrounded them or were driving them farther away. Clint’s blood ran cold. The Comanches were in strong force. Disaster to Belmet, Sidel, and their comrades was imminent, inevitable. Couch and his fourteen riders were racing toward the scene of battle, but it seemed to Clint that they were not only too late, but in danger of losing their own lives.
Clint happened to step on the field-glass that Couch had left on the seat. As he stooped to take it up he saw Tom Sidel’s white face at the wheel.
“Buff! Buff! Do you see anythin’?” he faltered.
“Do I? Good Lord! Jump up here, Tom,” returned Clint.
Tom climbed to a place beside him. “I see! I see!” he cried. “Oh, Buff, it’s good-by to my uncle John an’ your dad!”
Clint got the range with the field-glass, and then it appeared that the scene of terrific struggle was only a few rods from the wagon-train. He heard Tom talking wildly and crying out, but did not distinguish what he said. There was a shouting clamor inside the circle as the freighters ran around in excitement, moving wagons, making barricades of boxes of freight, and then dashing for a look out across the plain.
Couch and his riders ran into the range of Clint’s glass. They soon came within rifle-shot of the wheeling, flashing circle of Comanches, and spreading out they halted to open fire. Clint’s cold, clammy horror broke to thrill on thrill as he saw the quick puffs of white smoke.
It appeared that the Comanches had the guards surrounded, but not the stock. Oxen were lumbering in every direction. Unsaddled horses were running wild.
Then Clint was rudely shaken from his fascinated gaze. A freighter had jerked Tom off the seat and was reaching for Clint.
“Get down. Go back to your own wagon. Load your guns. Be ready to fight,” he ordered, harshly.
Clint piled off the seat, glass in hand, and ran to his wagon. In a few swift moves he had both his rifles and his pistol and a bag of ammunition ready at hand. But where should he make his stand. The wagon wheels afforded but little pro
tection, though better than none. If there had been time he might have built a platform of boxes high enough so that he would be protected by the wagon bed. He decided he would be better off inside the wagon. There was room enough under the seat for him to hide. Forthwith he deposited his arms in the wagon and climbed in. He still had Captain Couch’s field-glass.
Panting and sweating, Clint peeped over the side of the wagon. The wide, black, moving circle out there appeared to have condensed or gotten farther away. His hand shook and he had to rest the glass on the wagon to steady it. Then he found a dimness in his eyes, that hindered vision. There seemed both a knocking and a something locked tight within his breast.
Presently the powerful field-glass brought the battle right before Clint. And it was stunning. The swift circle of Comanche horses seemed riderless, but the occasional puffs of smoke, and a closer view proved those incomparable horsemen were hanging over the backs of their mustangs, shooting from under their necks. A streaming, smoking continuous whirl! All inside that circle was a blur. Yet plain it was the circle closed inward.
Somewhat to the right Couch’s men bobbed on their horses, shooting fast, moving back, it seemed. Where were the fifteen freighters who had dashed out to the rescue of the guards? Clint counted only nine.
Faster and smaller rode the wheel of Comanches. Smoke and dust and action! The gold of sunset flashed on bright moving objects. Mustangs leaped high to plunge down. The rattle of rifle-shots lessened. Suddenly all those wheeling horses appeared to have riders with upflung arms, plumes and feathers flying; the circling ceased. The movement was inward only. It was like the wave of prairie grass. Then from across the space pealed a low, wild, and hideous sound — the war whoop of the Comanches. It signaled victory. And the intricate mass seemed a lashing thicket of horses’ heads, manes, riders, arms, bonnets, guns, and bows, all upflung in terrible significance.
“ALL READY! They’re comin’!” sang out the stentorian voice of one of the freighters in the line.