by Zane Grey
“‘How,’ I said.
“‘How,’ he replied.
“Then we locked eyes. I was cold an’ quiet, hidin’ my fear an’ hope. An’ the Injun showed in his piercin’ glance suspicion thet would hey been astonishment in anyone save a redskin. Thet Injun hed a pair of eyes that showed the very soul of lifelong hatred.
“‘Ugh!’ he exclaimed. ‘White man—buffalo-killer—lose trail. Me know white man!’
“I would have liked to deny my reputation. But thet would hey been the worst thing for me.
“‘No lose trail—come swap pony,’ I said.
“‘Heap lie!’ he replied, in scorn.
“‘Big chief brave—now,’ I taunted, an’ swept my arm round the camp. I knew the Injun nature. The chief lifted his head with a motion that said ‘No.’ The Comanche cared for nothin’ but courage an’ endurance. He was faced in his home by a defenseless hunter. No doubt he felt the call of his blood. It was his law that he couldn’t tomahawk me or order me shot an’ scalped till he hed made me show fear. An’ thar was my hope. The Comanche hed to see fear in me, or sense it, before he could kill me.
“I looked as if I didn’t know what fear was. I jest made myself stone. In this was all the little hope I hed of life. The redskin hed to be made believe I had rid into his camp, feelin’ no fear of death, recognizin’ no cause for it, an’ holdin’ myself safe. Now the redskin believed in the supernatural, in the unseen force of nature leaguin’ itself with the brave, an’ givin’ man a god-like spirit. Years of bloody warfare had driven the redskin back from the frontiers, made him a savage whar once no doubt he was noble, but fire an’ strife an’ blood couldn’t stamp out thet belief.
“‘Swap pony,’ I said again, an’ showed silver I would include in the trade.
“‘How much?’ he asked.
“‘Heap much,’ I answered.
“He held out a brown lean hand for the silver, an’ threw it straight back in my face. The hard silver cut an’ bruised me; blood flowed from cuts, but I didn’t move a muscle, an’ kept a cool gaze level with the dark hot eyes of the redskin.
“Thet flingin’ of the silver was a young chiefs undignified passion toward a prisoner who hed become prisoner without effort or risk for any warrior. No honor was thar in me, no glory in insult to me. I caught my advantage, an’ became cooler an’ stonier than ever, an’ put a little contempt in my looks.
“A sudden yell from him brought his band runnin’ an’ leapin’. They grunted an’ let out deep savage cries. A circle formed round us, a circle of bronzed, scarred warriors, an’ I felt my time was near. They all knew me, not so much because I hed fought them, but because I was a great buffalo-killer, an’ they hated me for thet. More than any other hunter I made meat scarce at their camp-fires. Their meanin’ eyes roved from chief to me, spellin’ sentences of iron an’ torture an’ death.
“The Comanche took from one of his braves a long black bow as tall as himself, an’ a long feathered an’ barbed arrow. He leaned toward me, an’ his look was so keen thet I felt it would read my soul.
“‘White hunter lie—no want swap pony—hunt buffalo—no smell Indian smoke.’
“I kept silence an’ never let my gaze flicker from his. Thet was all I could do. No word, no move could help me now. I summoned all I had left of courage, an’ tried in a flash to think of all the tight places I hed been in before.
“White hunter lie!’ repeated the Comanche.
“Then with slow an’ deliberate motion, never lowerin’ his burnin’ gaze, he fitted the arrow to the bow an’ slowly stretchin’ his arms he shot the arrow at my foot.
“I felt it graze me and heard the light thud as it entered the ground. I twitched inwardly an’ a chill crept up from my foot. But I made no outward motion, not a flick of an eyelash.
“‘White hunter lie!’
“Thet was the redskin’s stumblin’-block. He couldn’t believe that any white hunter, much less me, would dare to come before him an’ all his braves, an’ ask to swap ponies. His crafty mind told him it couldn’t be true. An’ every beat of his heart throbbed to make me show it. Selectin’ another arrow he set the feathered notch against the rawhide cord—an’ twang!… The sharp point bit into the leather of my boot, an’ buried itself half length.
“Thet Comanche’s gaze became the hardest thing I ever stood. He looked clear through me for signs of weakenin’. I saw the cold gleam of somethin’ hangin’ in the balance, an’ I matched white courage against red cunnin’. His eyelids shut down till they was mere slits over black blazes, an’ the veins over his temples swelled an’ beat. Still, he had command of himself, an’ his movements were as slow as the torture he promised. Again he reached for an arrow, notched it, drew it, paused while he called me liar, then shot it. A knife-blade couldn’t hey been wedged between thet arrow an’ my foot. Then, one after another, slow an’ cruel, he shot twelve arrows, an’ penned my foot in a little circle of feathered shafts.
“With thet he stopped to eye me for a little. Suddenly, as quick as he hed been slow, he shot an arrow straight through my boot, pinnin’ my foot to the ground.
“It burned like a red-hot bar of iron.
“‘Heap lie!’ he yelled, in a voice of thunder.
“Again he leaned forward to search my face for a shade of fear. But the pain upheld me, an’ he couldn’t scare me. Then he sprang erect to straighten the long bow in line with his eye. He lifted the bow so that the murderous arrow-head of flint pointed at my heart. An’ his eye pierced me. Slow—slow as a fiend he began to bend the bow. It was thick an’ heavy, an’ hed been seasoned an’ strung when firearms were unknown to the redskins. It was such a bow as only a great chief could own, an’ one thet only a powerful arm could bend. An’ this chief bent it slowly, more an’ more every second, till, makin’ a perfect curve, it quivered an’ vibrated with the strain. The circle of Injuns parted from behind me. Once loosened thet arrow would never have stopped in my body.
“I knew either the Injun or I must soon give way under thet ordeal. But it was my life at stake, an’ he began to weaken first. He began to tremble.
“‘Swap pony’—lie!” he said.
“Somehow I hed it in me then to laugh. “The Comanche kept his look of pride an’ hatred. Then, raisin’ the bow, he shot the arrow in a wonderful flight out of sight over the ridge.
“‘Waugh! Waugh!’ he cried in disgust, an’ threw down the bow. He couldn’t frighten me, therefore he wouldn’t kill me.
“‘Brave lie!’ A kind of light seemed to clear his angry face. He waved his long arm toward the ridge an’ the east, an’ then, turnin’ his back on me, went among the cottonwoods. The other warriors went after him, leavin’ my way open. Thet was how even the Comanches honored courage.
“I pulled the arrows from the ground, an’ last the one thet held my foot like a red-hot spike. Leadin’ my hoss I limped out of camp, an’ climbed the ridge. When I got out of sight I took off my boot to see how bad I was hurt. Thet thar arrow went between my toes, jest grazin’ them an’ hardly drawin’ blood! I hed been so scared I thought my foot was shot half off.… But all the same, thet was the narrerest escape Hiram Bent ever had!”
CHAPTER XV
WILD MUSTANGS
One morning Navvy came in with the horses and reported that Wings had broken his hobbles and gone off with a band of wild mustangs. We were considerably put out about it, especially as Hal took the loss much to heart. Hiram asked the Navajo whether the marauding band were really mustangs or the wild horses we had seen on the plateau. And Navvy grinned at the idea of his making a mistake over tracks.
“Shore thought there wasn’t no mustangs up here,” commented Jim.
“Thar wasn’t when we come up,” replied Hiram. “They jest trotted down off Buckskin, climbed up hyar an’ coaxed Wings off. Wild mustangs do thet a lot, an’ so do wild hosses fer thet matter. The mountain’s full of them. We’re all the time havin’ trouble with our hosses. Now a hoss thet’s well broke a
n’ tame an’ even used to haulin’ a wagon will git crazy the minnit he smells them wild hosses. An’ he’ll git like a fox, an’ he’ll hide in the cedars when you track him, an’ dog-gone me if I don’t believe he’ll try to hide his tracks.”
“Isn’t there any way to catch Wings?” inquired Ken.
“I reckon we’ll never git a bridle on him agin. But we might round up the band, an’ catch a couple of mustangs. What do you say to takin’ the trail of them mustangs?”
Ken and Hal yelled their desire for that, and it seemed to suit Jim pretty well. And I was like him, rather pleased to undertake whatever pleased the brothers.
“What’ll I ride?” asked Hal, suddenly.
“You an’ Navvy can both saddle a pack-hoss,” replied Hiram.
“You shore ain’t goin’ to take the Injun?” inquired Jim.
“Wal, I reckon so. He’s a Navajo, ain’t he? An’ while I don’t like to hurt your Texas feelin’s, Jim, thar never was the white feller on earth thet could hold a candle to a Navajo when it comes to hosses.”
“Shore, you’re right,” declared Jim, with wonderful good nature.
“An’ fellers,” went on Hiram, “stuff some biscuits in your pockets, an’ throw a blanket on your hoss before saddlin’. Mebbe we won’t git back tonight. Ken, give the hounds a good feed, an’ see they’re tied proper. It’ll be a rest for them, an’ they need it.”
“Shall I take my rifle?” asked Ken.
“Wal, you’d better. Thar’s no tellin’ what we’ll strike down thar in the brakes. It’s my idee them mustangs will take to thet wide plateau down below, lookin’ fer rich browse. An’ thet’s jest what I’d like to see. Down thar we’d hey a chance to corner them, an’ if they go up in Buckskin thar won’t be no use trackin’ them.”
The hounds howled dismally as we rode away from camp, and the last time I turned I saw Prince standing up the length of his chain and wild to go with us. In a hollow perhaps a half-mile from camp Navvy picked up the mustang trail, and he followed it through the forest without getting off his horse.
“Boys, can you see tracks?” I asked Ken and Hal.
Ken laughed his inability, and Hal said: “Nix.”
“Wal, I can’t see any myself,” added Hiram.
It was remarkable how the Navajo trailed that band of mustangs over the soft pine-needle mats. Try as I might I could not see the slightest sign of a track. However, when we got to the dusty trail at the head of the Saddle, tracks were exceedingly plain to us. We rode down in single file and were glad to find the mustangs had turned to the left toward the plateau that Hiram had called the brakes. We passed the spring and Hiram’s camp, where I had brought the boys to meet him, and then went on past the gulch where we had come down.
Before us spread a plateau a thousand feet under the great rim-wall above. It widened and widened till the walls of rock were ten miles apart, and the end of this wild brake was fully thirty miles away. It was an exceedingly wild and rough place. The horses had to go slowly. Scrub-oak only breast-high, and as thick as a hedge, and as spiked as a barbed-wire fence, made progress tedious and painful.
“Ken, you’d hardly think you were down in the Canyon, would you?” I asked.
“It’s hard to know what to think down in this awful hole. Where are we, anyhow?”
“There’s no name for this bench that I ever heard. It’s only a line on the maps. We’ve just got beyond the end of Powell’s Plateau. Buckskin, of course, rises on our right. To the left the real Canyon deepens, and straight ahead—that yellow rim with the black border—is what they call Siwatts. It’s spur of the mountain.”
The outlook from where we rode was level only at a distance. As we went on we were continually riding up and down ridges, heading canyons and gullies, and crossing brooks. We jumped deer and foxes and coyotes out of every brake. The scrub-oak gave way to manzanita—a red-barked, green-leaved species of brush that was almost impenetrable. And when we did get through that it was to enter a cedar forest where the ground was red and bare and soft. The mustang tracks were now plain to the eye and quite fresh. Other tracks were of great variety. Hiram halted us all round an enormous cougar track. The marks had evidently been made some time before, and during wet weather. The cougar was so heavy he had sunk in half a foot, and his track was bigger around than that of any horse we had.
“I reckon he’s the captain,” remarked Hiram.
Ken dismounted once to pick up some arrowheads. One was a perfect point, over six inches long, of dark blue flint, and sharp as a blade.
“Thet’s pretty old, youngster,” said Hiram. “The Navajos used to come here for their buckskin. Thet’s why the mountain was called Buckskin.”
Hal fired at a coyote, and the sleepy pack-horse he rode woke and nearly left the boy hanging on the spikes of a cedar.
“Hyar!” called Hiram. “Don’t shoot fer nothin’, Hal. We don’t want to scare the mustangs.”
The trail led across the cedar forest, out into open ground again, and began to go down, bench by bench, step by step.
It was hot down there. But presently the sun was hidden behind storm-clouds and the air grew cooler. I heard Jim grumbling that he never trailed any horses that did not stop to graze. And Hiram replied that this particular band evidently was making for some especial place. Presently we came out upon the edge of a step with another step some hundreds of feet below. The scene was so rugged and beautiful and wonderful that I had to look many times before I made any special note of ground near at hand. But finally I saw a triangular promontory, perhaps a mile or more in length on each side, and this was green with rich grass and willow except out on the extreme point, where it was bare and white. Deep canyons bounded this promontory on three sides.
“Git back out of sight,” said Hiram. “If the mustangs are down thar we don’t want them to see us.”
We all dismounted and led our horses back into a clump of cedars.
“We’ll wait hyar an’ let Navajo go look thet place over,” added Hiram.
The Indian understood without being told, and he stole off among the jumbles of rocks. Hal was the other one who did not rest, and he got on the trail of some animal and went off among the cedars toward a seamed and cracked cliff. We heard him throwing stones, and presently he yelled for Ken.
“Youngster, hurry up an’ sit on thet thar kid, or he’ll spoil our mustang hunt,” said Hiram.
Navvy returned and announced that he had seen the mustangs browsing. Then Hiram went off with him to get sight of the band and the lay of the ground. Meanwhile the sky grew darker and darker, and there was a cool touch of rain or snow in the air. Hiram was gone nearly an hour, and in that time Jim and I saw or heard nothing of the boys.
“It’s goin’ to snow,” said Hiram. “An’ we’ve got to throw a camp quick. Say, them mustangs are down War on Wet kite-shaped shelf, an’ dog-gone me if thar ain’t only one trail leadin’ down. An’ it’s narrer an’ steep. We can drive them an’ ketch all we can handle. Whar are the youngsters?”
“Shore we don’t know. They’re chasin’ some-thin’ shore’s you’re born,” said Jim.
“Who fetched an axe?” asked Hiram.
I was never caught out without my small hand-axe, and with this we set about cutting cedar branches and brush to make shelters. A big black cloud swooped down on us, bringing a flurry of snow. At that juncture Ken and Hal stalked into camp, each carrying a struggling, snapping little fox. Both boys were bleeding from bites or cuts which they minded not at all.
“Been ropin’ foxes, eh?” asked Hiram. “Wal, let ’em go an’ pitch in hyar an’ help. We’ve got the mustangs rounded up, an’ with good weather we’ll hey more fun an’ hard work than you youngsters hey seen yet.”
It was noticeable that Ken released his capture, while Hal tied his to a cedar with a cord. Both lads lent their aid, and it was not long before we had a big lean-to on the windward side. It was not finished any too soon, for the snow began to fall. A snowstorm like this
one was as bad as rain, and as good as rain, too, for it was heavy, thick, and wet. When the storm passed six inches of snow lay upon everything. The sun still hid behind clouds, but the air was warm and the snow melted fast.
“Fellars, it’s gittin’ late, anyhow,” said Hiram. “An’ we couldn’t do much in this snow. We’ll wait till tomorrer. I’ll fence up thet narrer trail so the mustangs can’t give us the slip.”
We lounged around our camp, made a meal on biscuits and snowballs, and rolled in our blankets to sleep soundly. Hiram awakened us early. We ate what little we had left, and, as the sun rose red and warm, we were eager to begin the day’s adventure.
“Let’s all take a look at the mustangs,” suggested Hiram.
There were patches of snow left in shady places, and the ground was soft and soggy. We followed Hiram out of the cedars, thorough brush and round huge boulders, and finally crawled to a point on the edge of the bluff.
“Look at thet! Jest look!” whispered Hiram, hoarsely.
The bare promontory glistened in the morning sunlight, and right in the middle of it was the band of wild mustangs. There were whites and blacks and bays.
“There’s Wings!” burst out Hal.
“S-s-sh. Not so loud thar,” said Hiram. “What are they doing?” asked Ken, in eager interest.
“The snow’s melted, an’ they’re drinkin’ out of the little pockets in the rock.”
“Well!—it’s great!” replied Ken.
I shared his delight. To my mind there could not have been a more beautiful sight than the mustangs drinking on that promontory. The mustangs looked wild. They were shaggy. Long manes waved in the breeze. The leader of the band, a fine, keen-looking white, stood on guard. His attitude showed pride as well as suspicion. He held his head up and he was looking our way. Beyond the promontory yawned the blue shadow of an abyss, and beyond that lifted a bold red bluff, and farther on loomed a great dome. And all around to left and right were the ragged ridges of rock and the dark clefts between the cliffs. It was a wild background for these wild rangers of the wilderness.