The Quest of the Four Part 17

"They can't have gone long," said Breakstone. "They may have thought that we were merely loitering behind for some purpose of our own and would soon overtake them. A whole train isn't going to linger about for two fellows well mounted and well armed who are supposed to know how to take care of themselves. But, Sir Philip of the Youthful Countenance, I don't think that Middleton and Arenberg would go ahead without us."

"Neither do I," said Phil with emphasis. "I as good as know that they're looking for us in these woods, and we've got to stay behind and find them, taking the risk of Comanches."

"Wherein I do heartily agree with you, and I'm going to take a chance right now. It is likely that the two, after fruitless searches for us, would return here at intervals, and, in a region like this, the sound of a shot will travel far. Fire the rifle, Phil, and it may bring them.

It's often used as a signal. If it brings the Comanches instead, we're on our horses, and they're strong and swift."

Phil fired a shot, but there was no response. He waited half an hour and fired a second time, with the same result. After another half hour, the third shot was fired, and, four or five minutes later, Breakstone announced that he heard the tread of hoofs. It was a faint, distant sound, but Phil, too, heard it, and he was confident that it was made by hoofs. The two looked at each other, and each read the question in the other's eye. Who were coming in reply to the call of that third rifle shot, red men or white?

"We'll just draw back a little behind this clump of bushes," said Breakstone. "We can see a long way through their tops, and not be seen until the riders come very close. Then, if the visitors to this Forest of Arden of ours, Sir Philip, are not those whom we wish to see, it's up and away with us."

They waited in strained eagerness. The sounds grew louder. It was certain, moreover, that the riders were coming straight toward the point at which the rifle had been fired.

"Judging from the hoof beats, how many would you say they are?" asked Phil.

"Not many. Maybe three or four, certainly not more. But I'm hoping that it's two, neither more nor less."

On came the hors.e.m.e.n, the hoofbeats steadily growing louder. Phil rose in his stirrups and gained a further view. He saw the top of a soft hat and then the top of another. In a half minute the faces beneath came into view. He knew them both, and he uttered a cry of joy.

"Middleton and Arenberg!" he exclaimed. "Here they come!"

"Our luck still holds good," said Bill Breakstone. He and Phil galloped from behind the bushes and shouted as warm a welcome as men ever had.

They received one equally warm in return, as Middleton and the German urged their horses forward. Then there was a mighty shaking of hands and mutual congratulations.

"The train left yesterday morning," said Middleton, "but we couldn't give you up. We scouted all the way across the forest and saw the Comanches on the other side. There was nothing to indicate anything unusual among them, such as a sacrifice of prisoners, and we hoped that if you had been taken by them you had escaped, and we came back here to see, knowing that if you were able you would return to this place. We were right in one part of our guess, because here you are."

"And mighty glad we are to be here," said Bill Breakstone, "and I want to say to you that I, Bill Breakstone, who may not be of so much importance to the world, but who is of vast importance to himself, would not be here at all, or anywhere else, for that matter, if it were not for this valiant and skillful youth, Sir Philip Bedford, Knight of the Texas plains."

"Stop, Bill," exclaimed Phil blus.h.i.+ng. "Don't talk that way."

"Talk that way! Of course I will! And I'll pile it up, too! And after I pile it up and keep on piling it up, it won't be the whole truth.

Cap, and you, Hans, old fellow, Phil and I were not taken together, because Phil was never taken at all. It was I alone who sat still, shut my eyes, and closed my ears while I let three of the ugliest Comanche warriors that were ever born walk up, lay violent hands on me, harness me up in all sorts of thongs and withes, and carry me off to their village, where they would have had some red sport with me if Phil hadn't come, when they were all mad with a great dance, and taken me away."

Then he told the story in detail, and Phil, shy and blus.h.i.+ng, was compelled to receive their compliments, which were many and sincere.

But he insisted that he merely succeeded through good luck, which Bill Breakstone warmly denied.

"Well, between the two of you, you have certainly got out of it well,"

said Middleton, "and, as we are reunited, we must plan for the next step. We can easily overtake the train by to-morrow, but I'm of the opinion that we'll have to be very careful, and that we must do some scouting, also. Arenberg and I have discovered that the Comanche warriors are on the move again. Their whole force of warriors seemed to be getting ready to leave the village, and they may be planning, after all, a second attack upon the train, a night surprise, or something of that kind. We, too, will have to be careful lest we run into them."

"Then it maybe for the good of the train that we were left back here,"

said Phil, "because we will return with a warning."

"It may be the hand of Providence," said Arenberg, "since the Comanches did no harm where much was intended."

As both Middleton and Arenberg were firmly convinced that the plain would be thick with Comanche scouts, making their pa.s.sage by daylight impossible, or at least extremely hazardous, they decided to remain in the woods until nightfall. They rode a couple of miles from the camp, tethered their horses in thick bushes, and, sitting near them, waited placidly. Phil Breakstone, and Arenberg talked in low tones, but Middleton sat silent. Phil noticed presently that "The Cap" was preoccupied. Little lines of thought ran down from his eyes to the corners of his nose.

Phil began to wonder again about the nature of Middleton's mission.

Every one of the four was engaged upon some great quest, and none of them knew the secret of any of the others. Nor, in the rush of events, had they been left much time to think about such matters.

Now Phil again studied Middleton more closely. There was something in the unaccustomed lines of his face and his thoughtful eye indicating a belief that for him, at least, the object of the quest might be drawing nigh. At least, it seemed so to the boy. He studied, too, Middleton's clean cut face, and the sharp line of his strong chin. Phil had noticed before that this man was uncommonly neat in his personal appearance. It was a neatness altogether beyond what one usually saw on the plains.

His clothing was always clean and in order, he carried a razor, and he shaved every day. Nor did he ever walk with a slovenly, lounging gait.

Phil decided that something very uncommon must have sent him with the Santa Fe train, but he would not ask; he had far too much delicacy to pry into the secret of another, who did not pry into his own.

Middleton and Arenberg had ample food in their saddlebags and Phil and Breakstone combined with it their stock of deer meat. Nothing disturbed them in the thicket, and at nightfall they mounted and rode out into the plain.

"I know something about this country before us," said Breakstone. "It runs on in rolling swells for a march of many days, without any streams except shallow creeks, and without any timber except the fringes of cottonwoods along these creeks."

"And I know which way to go in order to overtake the train," said Middleton. "Woodfall said that they would head straight west, and we are certainly good enough plainsmen to keep our noses pointed that way."

"We are, we surely are," said Bill Breakstone, "but we must keep a good watch for those Comanche scouts. They hide behind the swells on their ponies, and they blend so well with the dusky earth that you'd never notice 'em until they had pa.s.sed the signal on to others that you were coming and that it was a good time to form an ambush."

There was a fair sky, with a moon and some clear stars, and they could see several hundred yards, but beyond that the whole horizon fused into a dusky wall. They rode at a long, swinging pace, and the hoofs of their horses made little noise on the new spring turf. The wind of the plains, which seldom ceases, blew gently in their faces and brought with it a soft crooning sound. Its note was very pleasant in the ears of Philip Bedford. In the saddle and with his best friends again, he felt that he could defy anything. He felt, too, and perhaps the feeling was due to his physical well-being and recovered safety, that he, also, was coming nearer to the object of his quest. Involuntarily he put his left hand on his coat, where the paper which he had read so often lay securely in a little inside pocket. He knew every word of it by heart, but when the time came, and he was alone, he would take it out and read it again. It was this paper that was always calling to him.

They rode on, crossing swell after swell, and, after the first hour, the four did not talk. It was likely that every one was thinking of his own secret.

They came about midnight to a prairie creek, a stream of water two or three yards wide and a few inches deep, flowing in a bed of sand perhaps fifteen yards across. A thin fringe of low cottonwoods and some willows grew on either sh.o.r.e. They approached warily, knowing that such a place offered a good ambush, and realizing that four would not have much chance against a large Comanche war band.

"But I don't think there is much danger," said Bill Breakstone. "If the Comanches are up to mischief again, they're not looking for stray parties; their mind is on the train, and, by the way, the train has pa.s.sed along here. Look down, and in this moonlight you can see plainly enough the tracks of a hundred wheels."

"The horses are confident," said Middleton, "and I think we can be so, too."

The horses were advancing without hesitation, and it soon became evident that nothing was concealed among the scanty lines of trees and bushes.

"Look out for quicksands," said Arenberg. "It iss not pleasant to be swallowed up in one of them and feel that you have died such a useless death."

"There is no danger," said Phil, whose quick eye was following the trail of the wagons. "Here is where the train crossed, and if the wagons didn't sink we won't."

The water being cold and entirely free from alkali, the horses drank eagerly, and their riders, also, took the chance to refill their canteens, which they always carried strapped to their saddle bows. They also rested awhile, but, when they remounted and rode on, Middleton noticed a light to the northward. On the plains then, no man would pa.s.s a light without giving it particular attention, and the four sat on their horses for some minutes studying it closely. They thought at first that it might be a signal light of the Comanches, but, as it did not waver, they concluded that it must be a camp fire.

"Now I'm thinking," said Bill Breakstone, "that we oughtn't to leave a camp fire burning away here on the plains, and we not knowing anything about it. It won't take us long to ride up and inspect it."

"That is a truth," said Middleton. "It is not a difficult matter for four hors.e.m.e.n to overtake a wagon train, but we'll first see what that fire means."

"It iss our duty to do so," said the phlegmatic German.

They rode straight toward the light, and their belief that it was a camp fire was soon confirmed. They saw the red blaze rising and quivering, and then dusky figures pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing before it.

"We're yet too far away to tell exactly what those figures are," said Bill Breakstone, "but I don't see any sign of long hair or war bonnets, and so I take it that they are not Comanches, nor any other kind of Indians, for that matter. No warriors would build so careless a fire or wander so carelessly about it.

"They are white men," said Middleton with conviction, as he increased his horse's pace. "Ah, I see now! Mexicans! Look at the shadows of their great conical hats as they pa.s.s before the fire."

"Now I wonder what they're doing here on Texas soil," said Bill Breakstone.

Middleton did not answer, but Phil noticed that the look in his eyes was singularly tense and eager. As they drew near the fire, which was a large one, and the hoof-beats of their horses were heard, two men in Mexican. dress, tall conical broad-brimmed hats, embroidered coats and trousers and riding boots, bearing great spurs, came forward to meet them. Phil saw another figure, which had been lying on a blanket by the fire, rise and stand at attention. He instantly perceived, even then, something familiar in the figure.

The four rode boldly forward, and Middleton called out:

"We are friends!"