The Quest of the Four Part 5

The two galloped away straight toward the West, and, as the forest offered no difficulties, they were not compelled to check their speed.

But in less than an hour Breakstone, who was in advance, pulled his horse back sharply, and Phil did the same.

"Look, Phil!" exclaimed Breakstone, making a wide sweep with his hands, while face and eyes were glowing, "See, it is Texas!"

Phil looked. None could have been more eager than he was. The hill seemed to drop down before them sheer, like a cliff, but beyond lay a great gray-green waving sea, an expanse of earth that pa.s.sed under the horizon, and that seemed to have no limit. It was treeless, and the young gra.s.s had touched the gray of winter with fresh green.

"The great plains!" exclaimed Phil. He felt an intense thrill. He had at last reached the edge of this vast region of mystery, and to-morrow they would enter it.

"Yes, the great plains," said Bill Breakstone. "And down here, I think, is where our wagons will have to pa.s.s." He turned to the left and followed a gentle slope that led to the edge of the plains. Thus, by an easy descent, they left the forest, but when they turned back Phil's eye was caught by a glittering object:

"Look, Bill!" he exclaimed. "See the arrow! What does it mean?"

An arrow with a deeply feathered shaft had been planted deep in an oak tree. Evidently it had been fired from a bow by some one standing on the plain, and it was equally evident that a powerful hand had drawn the string. It stood out straight and stark as if it would stay there forever. Bill Breakstone rode up to it and examined it critically.

"It's a Comanche arrow, Phil," he said, "and, between you and me, I think it means something:

"An arrow I see Stuck in a tree, But what it does mean Has not yet been seen--

"Especially when it's coupled with the fact that you saw Black Panther's face in the thicket. I may have an imaginative mind, Sir Philip of the Forest, soon to be Sir Philip of the Plain, but this arrow I take to be our first warning. It tells us to turn back, and it may have been fired by Black Panther himself, late Knight of the Levee and of Strong Drink."

"Will we turn back?" asked Phil somewhat anxiously.

Bill Breakstone laughed scornfully.

"Do you think a crowd like ours would turn back for a sign?" he asked.

"Why, Phil, that arrow, if it is meant as a threat, is the very thing to draw them on. It would make them anxious to go ahead and meet those who say they must stop. If they were not that kind of men, they wouldn't be here."

"I suppose so," said Phil. "I, for one, would not want to turn back."

He rode up to the tree, took the arrow by the shaft, and pulled with all his might. He was a strong youth, but he could not loosen it. Unless broken off, it was to stay there, a sign that a Comanche warning had been given.

"I knew you couldn't move it," said Bill Breakstone. "The Indians have short bows, and you wouldn't think they could get so much power with them, but they do. It's no uncommon thing for a buck at close range to send an arrow clear through a big bull buffalo, and it takes powerful speed to do that."

They rode back, met the advancing line of wagons, and told what they had seen, to which the men themselves, as they came to the edge of the prairie, were able to bear witness. Yet they were not greatly impressed. Those who believed that it meant a challenge gayly accepted it as Breakstone had predicted.

"Let the Comanches attack, if they will," they said, shaking their rifles. Even the face of the quiet Middleton kindled.

"It's a good spirit our men show," he said to the three who were his chosen comrades, "but I knew that they would never turn back because of an Indian threat."

The train advanced slowly down into the plain, and then began its march across the vast, grayish-green expanse. The traveling was very easy here, and they made seven or eight miles over the rolling earth before they stopped at sunset. Phil, looking back, could still see the dark line of the hilly country and the forest, but before him the prairie rolled away, more than ever, as the twilight came, like an unknown sea.

The camp was beside a shallow stream running between low banks. They built their fires of cottonwood and stunted oaks that grew on either side, and then Phil saw the darkness suddenly fall like the fall of a great blanket over the plains. With the night came a low, moaning sound which Bill Breakstone told him was merely the wind blowing a thousand miles without a break.

Phil took his turn at guard duty the latter half of that night, walking about at some distance from the camp, now and then meeting his comrades on the same duty, and exchanging a word or two. It was very dark, and the other sentinels were not in the best of humor, thinking there was little need for such a watch, and Phil by and by confined himself strictly to his own territory.

Although his eyes grew used to the darkness, it was so heavy that they could not penetrate it far, and he extended his beat a little farther from the camp. He thought once that he heard a light sound, as of footsteps, perhaps those of a horse, and in order to be certain, remembering an old method, he lay down and put his ear to the ground.

Then he was quite sure that he heard a sound very much like the tread of hoofs, but in a moment or two it ceased. He rose, shaking his head doubtfully, and advanced a little farther. He neither saw nor heard anything more, and he became convinced that the footsteps had been those of some wild animal. Perhaps a lone buffalo, an outlaw from the herd, had been wandering about, and had turned away when the human odor met his nostrils.

He returned toward the camp, and something cold pa.s.sed his face. There was a slight whistling sound directly in his ear, and he sprang to one side, as if he had narrowly missed the fangs of a rattlesnake. He heard almost in the same instant a slight, thudding sound directly in front of him, and he knew instinctively what had made it. He ran forward, and there was an arrow sticking half its length in the ground. The impulse of caution succeeded that of curiosity. Remembering Bill Breakstone's teachings, he threw himself flat upon the ground, letting his figure blend with the darkness, and lay there, perfectly still. But no other arrow came. Nothing stirred. He could not make out among the shadows anything that resembled a human figure, although his eyes were good and were now trained to the work of a sentinel. Once when he put his ear to the earth he thought he heard the faint beat of retreating hoofs, but the sound was so brief and so far away that he was not sure.

Phil felt s.h.i.+vers, more after he lay down than when the arrow pa.s.sed his cheek. It was the first time that a deadly weapon or missile had pa.s.sed so close to him, fired perhaps with the intent of slaying him, and no boy could pa.s.s through such an experience without quivers and an icy feeling along the spine.

But when he lay still awhile and could not detect the presence of any enemy, he rose and examined the arrow again. There was enough light for him to see that the feathered shaft was exactly like that of the arrow they had found in the tree.

He pulled the weapon out of the ground and examined it with care. It had a triangular head of iron, with extremely sharp edges, and he shuddered again. If it had struck him, it would have gone through him as Bill Breakstone said the Comanche arrows sometimes went entirely through the body of a buffalo.

He took the arrow at once to the camp, and showed it to the men who were on guard there, telling how this feathered messenger--and he could not doubt that it was a messenger--had come. Woodfall and Middleton were awakened, and both looked serious. It could not be any play of fancy on the part of an imaginative boy. Here was the arrow to speak for itself.

"It must have been the deed of a daring Comanche," said Middleton with conviction. "Perhaps he did not intend to kill Phil, and I am sure that this arrow, like the first, was intended as a threat."

"Then it's wasted, just as others will be," said Woodfall. "My men do not fear Comanches."

"I know that," said Middleton. "It is a strong train, but we must realize, Mr. Woodfall, that the Comanches are numerous and powerful. We must make every preparation, all must stay close by the train, and there must be a strict night watch."

He spoke in a tone of authority, but it fitted so well upon him, and seemed so natural that Woodfall did not resent it. On the contrary, he nodded, and then added his emphatic acquiescence in words.

"You are surely right," he said. "We must tighten up everything."

This little conference was held beside some coals of a cooking fire that had not yet died, and Phil was permitted to stand by and listen, as it was he who had brought in the significant arrow. The coals did not give much light, and the men were half in shadow, but the boy was impressed anew by the decision and firmness shown by Middleton. He seemed to have an absolutely clear mind, and to know exactly what he wanted. Phil wondered once more what a man of that type might be seeking in the vast and vague West.

"I'll double the guard," said Woodfall, "and no man shall go out of sight of the train. Now, Bedford, my boy, you might go to sleep, as you have done your part of a night's work."

Phil lay down, and, despite the arrow so vivid in memory, he slept until day.

CHAPTER III

AT THE FORD

As Phil had foreseen, his latest story of warning found universal credence in the camp, as the arrow was here, visible to all, and it was pa.s.sed from hand to hand. He was compelled to tell many times how it had whizzed by his face, and how he had found it afterward sticking in the earth. All the fighting qualities of the train rose. Many hoped that the Comanches would make good the threat, because threat it must be, and attack. The Indians would get all they wanted and plenty more.

"The Comanche arrow has been shot, For us it has no terror; He can attack our train or not, If he does, it's his error,"

chanted Bill Breakstone in a mellow voice, and a dozen men took up the refrain: "He can attack our train or not, if he does, it's his error."

The drivers cracked their whips, the wagons, in a double line, moved slowly on over the gray-green plains. A strong band of scouts preceded it, and another, equally as strong, formed the rear-guard. Hors.e.m.e.n armed with rifle and pistol rode on either flank. The sun shone, and a crisp wind blew. Mellow s.n.a.t.c.hes of song floated away over the swells.

All was courage and confidence. Deeper and deeper they went into the great plains, and the line of hills and forest behind them became dimmer and dimmer. They saw both buffalo and antelope grazing, a mile or two away, and there was much grumbling because Woodfall would not let any of the marksmen go in pursuit. Here was game and fresh meat to be had for the taking, they said, but Woodfall, at the urgent insistence of Middleton, was inflexible. Men who wandered from the main body even a short distance might never come back again. It had happened too often on former expeditions.

"Our leader's right.

A luckless wight Trusting his might Might find a fight, And then good night,"

chanted Bill Breakstone, and he added triumphantly:

"That's surely good poetry, Phil! Five lines all rhyming together, when most poets have trouble to make two rhyme. But, as I have said before, these plains that look so quiet and lonely have their dangers. We must pa.s.s by the buffalo, the deer, and the antelope, unless we go after them in strong parties. Ah, look there! What is that?"