The Quest of the Four Part 3

But they were cheerful. Whatever were past griefs or whatever might be those to come, the present was propitious and fair. The Southern spring was not yet advanced far enough to drive the cool tang out of the air by daylight, while at night fires were needed. It rained but little, and they marched steadily on through crisp suns.h.i.+ne.

"I trust that the good Sir Roland is pleased," said Bill Breakstone to Phil. "Fresh air in the lungs of youth produces exhilaration."

"It's fine," said Phil, with emphasis.

"But we may yet come to our Pa.s.s of Roncesvalles. Bethink you of that, Sir Roland. They say that it's an ill wind that blows n.o.body good, and I say that it's a good wind that blows n.o.body ill. The rain will rain, the snow will snow, the wind will blow, and what will poor rabbit do then?"

"Get into his little nest, cover himself up warm and dry, and wait until it pa.s.ses," replied Phil.

"Right, Master Philip. Go up to the head of the cla.s.s," said Bill Breakstone in his usual joyous tones--Phil always thought that Bill had the cheeriest voice in the world--"I'm glad to see you taking thought for the future. Now our good friend Hans, here, would not have made such an apt reply."

"Perhaps not, and I do not mind your saying so, Herr Bill Breakstone,"

said Arenberg, smiling broadly. "No harm iss done where none iss meant."

"A fit answer from a loyal representative of the Hohenstauffens, the Hohenzollerns, and the Katzenellenbogens," chanted Bill Breakstone.

"Ah, Herr Breakstone, it iss that you are one happy man," said Arenberg.

"I wonder that you go to find something, when you have the joy of living anywhere."

"But I do go to find something," said Breakstone, suddenly becoming grave. Phil noticed that he puckered up his eyes and gazed far into the West, as if he would see already that for which he sought.

They traveled for several days among plantations in a low damp country, and then they pa.s.sed suddenly beyond the line of cultivation into a drier region of low hills and small prairies. Phil was pleased with the change. If they were going into the wilderness, he was anxious to reach it as soon as possible, and this, beyond a doubt, was the edge of the unknown. The first night that he heard the scream of a panther in the woods he felt that they were leaving all civilization behind, and that, save for the train, the world of men was blotted out.

Yet it was very pleasant as long as the weather remained dry, and the early spring was certainly doing its best. It was a succession of crisp days and cool nights, and Phil liked the steady advance by day through new lands, and the rest in the evening, when they built fires for the cooking and to fend off the chill. They usually drew the wagons up in a circle in one of the little prairies, and then went to the forest near by for wood that belonged to whomsoever took it. Phil and Bill Breakstone were always active in this work.

"It gives me an appet.i.te for supper," said Breakstone. "I would have you to know, Sir Philip of the Forest, that sitting long hours on a horse which carries me luxuriously along, the horse doing all the work and I doing none, tends to laziness and fat. I need this exercise to put me in proper trim for the luscious repast that awaits us."

"I don't need anything to whet my appet.i.te," replied Phil, as he laughed. "To tell you the truth, Bill, I'm always hungry."

"Do not grieve or have fears for the larder, Sir Philip of the Hungry Countenance. There is an abundance of food in the wagons, and we also shall soon be in a good game country. Unless my eye and hand have lost their cunning, a fat deer shall speedily be roasting over the coals."

The four kept close together, and they usually gathered around the fire at which Thomas Woodfall, the leader, sat. Woodfall had shown a decided respect and liking for Middleton, and, following the custom which Breakstone had established, always addressed him as Cap, short for Captain. Phil and Breakstone had been particularly active gathering wood that evening, and it had been Phil's task and pleasure, when it was all put in a heap, to light it. Now he was watching the little flames grow into big ones, and the yellow light turn to blazing red. He listened, also, as the flames hissed a little before the wind, and the dry boughs snapped and crackled under the fiery torch. Middleton regarded him with kindly approval.

"A good boy," he said to Woodfall. "A lad with fine instincts and a brave spirit."

"And a mighty handy one, too," said Woodfall. "I've noticed how he works. He's as big and strong as a man, and I never saw anybody else who was just prized down like a hogshead of tobacco, crowded full of zeal."

"I think it likely he will need it all before our journey is over," said Middleton.

"It's probable," repeated Woodfall, "but I'll ask you, Cap, not to speak it. It may be that this expedition was begun at the wrong time. I had heard, and the owners had heard, that the troubles with Mexico were quieting down, but it seems that, instead of doing so, they are getting livelier."

"I shall certainly say nothing about it to our people here," replied Middleton. "Cheerful hearts are the best, and we may have trouble with neither Mexicans nor Indians."

Phil himself was not thinking at that moment of either yellow or red foes. His fire had grown into a mighty pyramid, and, as the dead wood burned fast, it soon sank down into a great ma.s.s of glowing coals. Then he, Breakstone, and Arenberg boiled coffee in big iron pots, and cooked bread and many slices of bacon. The night was cool and nipping, but the coals threw out an abundance of heat. A delicious aroma arose and spread far. Everybody came forward with tin cup and tin plate, and helped himself. Phil took his filled plate in one hand, his filled cup in the other, and sat down on a fallen log with Breakstone and Arenberg.

"In my time, and as an ornament to the stage," said Bill Breakstone, "I have eaten some bountiful repasts. I have feasted as a prince, a duke, or some other lordling. I have been the wrestler in the Forest of Arden with _Rosalind_ and _Celia_. I have had my head deep in the mug of sack, as _Sir John Falstaff_, but most of those magnificent repasts depended largely upon the imagination. Here I am neither prince nor duke, but the food is real, and the air is so good that one might even bite a chip with a certain pleasure. Excuse me, Sir Philip of the Forest, while I even drain the coffee-cup."

He took it all down at one draught, and a beatific glow overspread his face. Arenberg regarded him with admiration.

"Ach, Mein Herr Breakstone, but you are one cheerful man!" he said.

"You never do any harm, because none iss meant. When you drink the coffee you make me think of the German in the old country drinking beer, and you like it as well."

"I s.n.a.t.c.h the joys of the flying day, or, rather, night, and think not of the ills of the morrow," replied Breakstone. "Somebody somewhere said something like that, and, whoever he was, he was a good talker.

To-morrow, Phil, I think I may get a chance to show you how to shoot a deer."

"I hope so," said Phil eagerly. He, too, was luxuriating, and he was fully as cheerful as Bill Breakstone. The great beds of coal threw a warm, luminous glow over all the circle enveloped by the wagons.

Everybody ate and felt good. The pleasant hum of pleasant talk arose.

Outside the wagons the tethered horses cropped the short young gra.s.s, and they, too, were content. Not far away the forest of magnolia, poplar, and many kinds of oak rustled before the slight wind, and the note that came from it was also of content.

Phil, after he had eaten and drunk all that he wished, and it was much, lay on the ground with his back against the log and listened to the talk. He heard wonderful tales of adventure in the West Indies and on the South American coast, of fights in Mexico and Texas, when the little bands of Texans won their independence, of encounters with raiding Comanches, and of strange stone ruins left by vanished races in the deserts of the Far West. He was fascinated as he listened. The spirit of romance was developed strongly within him. It was, indeed, a most adventurous search upon which he was embarked, and this spirit, strong, enduring, hardened to meet all things, was what he needed most.

As the fires died down, and the warmth decreased, he wrapped his blanket around himself, and now and then dozed a little. But he still felt very content. It seemed to him that it was uncommon fortune to have joined such an expedition, and it was a good omen. He must succeed in his great search.

"Well, Sir Roland, what is it?" said Bill Breakstone at last. "Do you want to sleep in the wagon or on the ground here? The good Knight Orlando, who for the present is myself, means to choose the ground."

"No stuffy wagon for me on a night like this," rejoined Phil sleepily.

"I am going to sleep just where I lie."

He settled back more comfortably, put his arm under his head, and in a few moments was in the deep, dreamless sleep of youth and health. Bill Breakstone quickly followed him to that pleasant land of Nowhere. Then Arenberg and the Captain were soon entering the same region. The fires sank lower and lower, the sound of breathing from many men arose, the horses outside became quiet, and peace settled over the wilderness camp.

Phil slept far into the night, he never knew how far, but he believed it was about half way between midnight and morning. When he awoke it was very dark, and there was no noise but that of the breathing men and the rustling wind. Just why he, a sound sleeper, had awakened at that time he could not say. But he had eaten largely, and he was conscious of thirst, a thirst that could be quenched easily at a little spring in the wood.

The boy rose, letting his blanket drop to the ground, and glanced over the sleeping camp. Despite the darkness, he saw the forms of rec.u.mbent men, and some coals that yet glimmered faintly. Around them was the dark circling line of the wagons. No regular watch was kept as they were yet far from dangerous country, and, pa.s.sing between two of the wagons, Phil went toward the spring, which was about three hundred yards away.

It was a nice cold spring, rising at the base of a rock, and running away in a tiny stream among the poplars. Phil knelt and drank, and then sat upon an upthrust root. The desire for sleep had left him, and his mind turned upon his great search. He took the paper from the inside pocket of his coat, unfolded it, and smoothed it out with his fingers.

It was too dark for him to read it, but he held it there a little while, then folded it up again, and returned it to its resting place. He was about to rise again and return to the camp, but something moved in the thicket. It might have been a lizard, or it might have been the wind, but he was sure it was neither. The sound was wholly out of harmony with the note of the night.

Phil remained sitting on the upthrust root, but leaned against the trunk to which the root belonged. His figure blended darkly against the bark.

Only an eye of uncommon acuteness would note him. The slight stirring, so much out of tune with all the wilderness noises, came again, and, despite his strength and will, both of which were great, Phil felt ice pa.s.s along his spine, and his hair rose slightly. That uncanny hour at which evil deeds happen held him in its spell. But he did not move, except for the slipping of his hand to the pistol in his belt, and he waited.

Slowly a dark face formed itself in the bushes, and beneath it was the faint outline of a human figure. The face was malignant and cruel, a reddish copper in color, with a sharp, strong chin, high cheek-bones, and black glowing eyes. These eyes were bent in a fierce gaze upon the circle of wagons. They did not turn in Phil's direction at all, but the face held him fascinated.

It seemed to Phil that he had seen that countenance before, and as he gazed he remembered. It was surely that of Black Panther, the Comanche, but what a startling change. The crouching, fuddled lump of a man in tattered clothes, whom he had seen in New Orleans, had been transformed when the breath of the wilderness poured into his lungs. He fitted thoroughly into this dark and weird scene, and the hair on Phil's head rose a little more. Then the head, and the figure with it, suddenly melted away and were gone. There was no strange stirring in the thicket, nothing that was not in accord with the night.

The ice left Phil's spine, the hair lay down peacefully once more on his head, and his hand moved away from the pistol at his belt. It was like a dream in the dark, the sudden appearance of that Medusa head in the bushes, and he was impressed with all the weight of conviction that it was an omen of bad days to come. The wind whispered it, and the quiver in his blood answered. But the men in the train might laugh at him if he told that he had merely seen an Indian's face in the bushes. The thing itself would be slight enough in the telling, and he did not wish to be ridiculed as a boy whose fears had painted a picture of that which was not. But he walked warily back, and he was glad enough when he repa.s.sed between two of the wagons, and resumed his old place.

Middleton, Arenberg, and Bill Breakstone all slept soundly, and Phil, wrapped in his blanket, sought to imitate them. But he could not. He lay there thinking until the low band of scarlet in the east foreshadowed the day. He rose and looked once more over the camp. The last coal had died, and the dark forms, wrapped in their blankets, looked chill and cold. But the red dawn was advancing, and warmth came with it. One by one the men awoke. The horses stirred. Phil stood up and stretched his arms. Middleton, Bill Breakstone, and Arenberg awoke.

They had slept soundly and pleasantly all through the night.

"'Tis a fine couch, this Mother Earth," said Bill Breakstone, "finer than cloth of gold, if it be not raining or snowing, or the winds be not nipping. Then, in such event, I should take the cloth of gold, with a snug tent over it."

"I have slept well, and I awake strong and refreshed," said Arenberg simply. "It iss all I ask of a night."

"I have not slept well," said Phil, "at least I did not during the latter part of the night."

There was a certain significance in his tone, and the others looked at him. Only they were near, and Phil said in a low tone:

"I awoke in the night, and I was restless. I walked down to the spring for a drink, and I saw a face in the bushes, the face of a man who was watching us."

"Ah!" said Middleton, a single monosyllable, long drawn. But his tone expressed interest, not surprise. He looked at the boy as if he expected to hear more.