The Lost Gold of the Montezumas Part 22

It was much longer because of the detour, and Red Wolf was now once more out of sight.

"What's that?" exclaimed Bowie. "What on earth made him whoop?

They've got him! Gallop, men! Save him if we can!"

They went forward at a swifter gait, but there was no saving to be done. They were already nearer than they had supposed to the pond and the ruins. The young Lipan had pressed on also, with a pretty clear idea in his head. He had even ridden to the border of the open, and had been looking out and around it searchingly.

"Ugh!" he said, "Great Bear no come!"

"Ugh!" exclaimed a deep voice from a thicket near him. "Castro!"

"Whoo-oo-oop!" burst from the lips of Red Wolf, and he wheeled his pony right into the thicket. "Castro!"

He could not have held in that burst of surprise and joy, nor could the chief himself have done otherwise than to come out from his hiding-place with a great bound. Swift, indeed, were the explanations which were exchanged. Only a brief outline could be given by Red Wolf of his wonderful campaign in Mexico. The particulars would have to wait. Castro himself could do but little better at that moment.

"Tetzcatl heap liar!" contained the root of the matter.

He had said very little more than that when they heard hushed voices in the pathway near them.

"Jest about yer it was," said one.

"Look out sharp now!" said another.

"I'll find his carkiss if I can," came from Joe. "He was a buster.

But what did he whoop for?"

"He ort not to," remarked Jim, "but I s'pose he couldn't help it. Now they'll all know we've come. But I just liked that young feller."

"Ugh!" said Castro. "Heap friend of Red Wolf. Boy talk."

Out darted Red Wolf, and in a moment more there were hearty hand-shakings all around.

Castro had ghastly tokens to show of the blows he had stricken upon his Comanche enemies, but now he gave also a better account of the manner of his separation from his friends on the night after they went over the Rio Grande.

There had been, as Tetzcatl had reported, a sharp brush between the Lipans and a party of Comanches. The old Tlascalan had only overstated the affair in order that he might carry off the Texans with him.

"All gone" had been partly true, nevertheless, for the Lipans, losing a few braves, had been forced to retreat toward the north. They had thereby been compelled to give up any idea of trying to join Bowie's party.

Ever since then, believing that his son and his friends had been "wiped out," the revengeful chief had been hanging upon the movements of Great Bear's band wherever they went or came. He was now informed somewhat more fully of what the adventurers had been doing, but it was no time for too much talk.

"Forward now," exclaimed Bowie, at last. "Our next business is to get the cash and push on to the Alamo. We're pretty nigh out of powder ourselves. We couldn't stand a long fight."

On they went, therefore, cautiously enough, but when they reached the open it seemed entirely deserted. They halted in the bushes while Castro and Red Wolf made circuits to the right and left.

"Men," said Bowie, with emphasis, while they waited, "we'll go in and get it. We must take almost any risk to carry it off. But don't you forget, if I go down, that this cash belongs to Texas. 'Tisn't yours nor mine, except each man's fair allowance for taking it in. None of you fellows found it, in the first place."

"All right, colonel," responded Joe. "Hurrah for Texas. I don't want any dollar that isn't mine."

"Don't hurrah quite yet," said Bowie. "We don't know how near we may be to a hundred scalping-knives. Hullo! Here they come."

It was the two Lipans and not the Comanches that he referred to.

"Big Knife walk along," said Castro, as he came nearer. "No Comanche."

"I'd like to give 'em a hit," growled Bowie, "but this isn't the time for it. Come on, boys. We mustn't waste a minute."

Even now he seemed perfectly cool, but none of the other Texans failed to show how strongly the "hidden treasure" fever had taken hold of them. It grew manifestly hotter after they had ridden to the ruined _adobe_ house, dismounted, and followed their leader in. It was almost impossible to believe that he was about to show them anything like actual gold and silver.

"You don't mean to say," said Joe, "that such a feller as old Tetzcatl left anything behind him up here?"

"No, he didn't," replied Bowie. "This isn't any Montezuma money. My notion is that it's old Spanish funds. If so, all the more does it of right belong now to the State of Texas."

"Of course it does!" said Cheyne, and the others heartily echoed him.

"Out it comes, then!" shouted the colonel, with the first external flash of the excitement which had all the while been smouldering within him. "You'll see what it is now. You didn't more'n half believe me, did you? Look at that!"

Over rolled the _adobe_ fragments which concealed the cash, and out came bag after bag, cast down with a c.h.i.n.k to be at once caught up by eager hands and opened. It was a breathless kind of work to make those bags tell what was in them.

"It's a pity so much of it's only silver," remarked Jim, regretfully; "but silver's better'n nothin'."

"Every feller wants more than he's got," said Joe, "but you'd kinder ought to be satisfied this time."

Red Wolf and his father had looked on in silence, but now the chief beckoned to his son and walked out.

"Ugh!" he said. "Red Wolf tell story. Talk Mexico. Long trail? Heap fight?"

All that remained to be told of the trip with Tetzcatl came out rapidly, until the mountain pa.s.s was reached and the doings in the cavern.

"Ugh!" sharply exclaimed Castro. "Shut mouth! Montezuma bad medicine!

Texan all die. Big Knife go under. Red Wolf? No! Red Wolf Indian.

No hurt him. Lose hair if he talk."

He said more, but his entire meaning seemed to be that it was a well-understood doctrine that any white adventurer learning the secrets of the Aztec G.o.ds was a doomed man. They would surely follow him up and kill him. It was not so bad for a full-blooded Indian, but even a Lipan would do well to forget anything he had heard or seen that belonged to the b.l.o.o.d.y mysteries of the evil "manitous" of the old race. It was evidently a deeply rooted superst.i.tion, and Red Wolf was quite ready to accept it fully. They returned to the ruin in time to hear Bowie remark,--

"Two hundred thousand, pretty nigh, dollars and doubloons. Now, boys, a thousand apiece for taking it in. All the rest goes to fight Santa Anna."

"That's the talk!" said the rangers, and the horses were led up to receive their loads.

It was not very easy to pack the ponderous stuff, even at the sacrifice of all the blankets on hand. After it was done, moreover, another fact was evident.

"Boys," said Joe, "it's a walk for us all the way to the Alamo."

"That 'll just suit the critters," replied the colonel. "It's all the're fit for. But we mustn't fail to get there. I kind o' feel as if Texas was getting safer."

They were themselves by no means safe and it was time to go forward.

The horses had picked a little gra.s.s. They had been watered, and so had the feverish, anxious rangers, but rest for either was not to be thought of.

Slowly, cautiously, the devious avenues of the seemingly endless thickets were traversed, and at last the little cavalcade, with its precious freight, emerged among the scattered trees on the border of the prairie.

"'Tisn't time for us to whistle yet," said Bowie, "even if we're out o'