Overland Part 14

Because he was a man, Clara obeyed him; and notwithstanding he was a man, Mrs. Stanley obeyed him. Both were so bewildered with surprise and terror as to be in a kind of animal condition of spirit, knowing just enough to submit at once to the impulse of an imperious voice. The riderless horse, equally frightened and equally subordinate, was hurried to the rear of the leading wagon and handed over to a muleteer.

By the time this work was done the foremost riders of the a.s.sailants were within two hundred yards of the head of the train, letting drive their arrows at the flying Mexican vedettes and uttering yells fit to raise the dead, while their comrades behind, whooping also, stormed along under a trembling and flickering of lances. The little, lean, wiry horses were going at full speed, regardless of smooth faces of rock and beds of loose stones. The blackguards were over a hundred in number, all lancers and archers of the first quality.

The vedettes never pulled up until they were in rear of the hindermost wagon, while their countrymen on the flanks and rear made for the same poor shelter. The drivers were crouching almost under their seats, and the muleteers were hiding behind their animals. Thus it was evident that the entire brunt of the opening struggle would fall upon Thurstane and his people; that, if there was to be any resistance at all, these five men must commence it, and, for a while at least, "go it alone."

The little squad of regulars, at this moment a few yards in front of the foremost wagon, was drawn up in line and standing steady, precisely as if it were a company or a regiment. Sergeant Meyer was on the right, veteran Kelly on the left, the two recruits in the centre, the pieces at a shoulder, the bayonets fixed. As Thurstane rode up to this diminutive line of battle, Meyer was shouting forth his sharp and decisive orders. They were just the right orders; excited as the young officer was, he comprehended that there was nothing to change; moreover, he had already learned how men are disconcerted in battle by a multiplicity of directions. So he sat quietly on his horse, revolver in hand, his blue-black eyes staring angrily at the coming storm.

"Kelly, reserfe your fire!" yelled Meyer. "Recruits, ready--bresent--aim--aim low--fire!"

Simultaneously with the report a horse in the leading group of charging savages pitched headlong on his nose and rolled over, sending his rider straight forward into a rubble of loose shales, both lying as they fell, without movement. Half a dozen other animals either dropped on their haunches or sheered violently to the right and left, going off in wild plunges and caracolings. By this one casualty the head of the attacking column was opened and its seemingly resistless impetus checked and dissipated, almost before Meyer could shout, "Recruits, load at will, load!"

A moment previous this fiery cavalry had looked irresistible. It seemed to have in it momentum, audacity, and dash enough to break a square of infantry or carry a battery of artillery. The horses fairly flew; the riders had the air of centaurs, so firm and graceful was their seat; the long lances were brandished as easily as if by the hands of footmen; the bows were managed and the arrows sent with dazzling dexterity. It was a show of brilliant equestrianism, surpa.s.sing the feats of circus riders.

But a single effective shot into the centre of the column had cleft it as a rock divides a torrent. It was like the breaking of a water-spout.

The attack, however, had only commenced. The Indians who had swept off to right and left went scouring along the now motionless train, at a distance of sixty or eighty yards, rapidly enveloping it with their wild caperings, keeping in constant motion so as to evade gunshots, threatening with their lances or discharging arrows, and yelling incessantly. Their main object so far was undoubtedly to frighten the mules into a stampede and thus separate the wagons. They were not a.s.saulting; they were watching for chances.

"Keep your men together, Sergeant," said Thurstane. "I must get those Mexicans to work."

He trotted deliberately to the other end of the train, ordering each driver as he pa.s.sed to move up abreast of the leading wagon, directing the first to the right, the second to the left, and so on. The result of this movement would of course be to bring the train into a compact ma.s.s and render it more defensible. The Indians no sooner perceived the advance than they divined its object and made an effort to prevent it. Thurstane had scarcely reached the centre of the line of vehicles when a score or so of yelling hors.e.m.e.n made a caracoling, prancing charge upon him, accompanying it with a flight of arrows. Our young hero presented his revolver, but they apparently knew the short range of the weapon, and came plunging, curveting onward. Matters were growing serious, for an arrow already stuck in his saddle, and another had pa.s.sed through his hat.

Suddenly there was a bang, bang of firearms, and two of the savages went down.

Meyer had observed the danger of his officer, and had ordered Kelly to fire, blazing away too himself. There was a headlong, hasty scramble to carry off the fallen warriors, and then the a.s.sailants swept back to a point beyond accurate musket shot. Thurstane reached the rear of the train unhurt, and found the six Mexican cattle-drivers there in a group, pointing their rifles at such Indians as made a show of charging, but otherwise doing nothing which resembled fighting. They were obviously panic-stricken, one or two of them being of an ashy-yellow, their nearest possible approach to pallor. There, too, was Coronado, looking not exactly scared, but irresolute and helpless.

"What does this mean?" Thurstane stormed in Spanish. "Why don't you shoot the devils?"

"We are reserving our fire," stammered Coronado, half alarmed, half ashamed.

Thurstane swore briefly, energetically, and to the point. "d.a.m.ned pretty fighting!" he went on. "If _we_ had reserved our fire, we should all have been lanced by this time. Let drive!"

The cattle-drivers carried short rifles, of the then United States regulation pattern, which old Garcia had somehow contrived to pick up during the war perhaps buying them of drunken soldiers. Supported by Thurstane's pugnacious presence and hurried up by his vehement orders, they began to fire. They were shaky; didn't aim very well; hardly aimed at all, in fact; blazed away at extraordinary elevations; behaved as men do who have become demoralized. However, as the pieces had a range of several hundred yards, the small bullets hissed venomously over the heads of the Indians, and one of them, by pure accident, brought down a horse. There was an immediate scattering, a mult.i.tudinous glinting of hoofs through the light dust of the plain, and then a rally in prancing groups, at a safe distance.

"Hurrah!" shouted Thurstane, cheering the Mexicans. "That's very well. You see how easy it is. Now don't let them sneak up again; and at the same time don't waste powder."

Then turning to one who was near him, and who had just reloaded, he said in a calm, strong, encouraging tone--that voice of the thoroughly good officer which comes to the help of the shaken soldier like a reinforcement--"Now, my lad, steadily. Pick out your man; take your time and aim sure. Do you see him?"

"Si, senor," replied the herdsman. His coolness restored by this steady utterance and these plain, common-sense directions, he selected a warrior in helmet-shaped cap, blue s.h.i.+rt, and long boots, brought his rifle slowly to a level, took sight, and fired. The Indian bent forward, caught the mane of his plunging pony, hung there for a second or two, and then rolled to the ground, amid a yell of surprise and dismay from his comrades. There was a hasty rush to secure the body, and then another sweep backward of the loose array.

"Good!" called Thurstane, nodding and smiling at the successful marksman.

"That is the way to do it. You are a match for half a dozen of them as long as you will keep cool."

The besieged travellers could now look about quietly and see how matters stood with them. The six wagons were by this time drawn up in two ranks of three each, so as to form a compact ma.s.s. As the one which contained the ladies had been the leader and the others had formed on it to right and left, it was in the centre of the first rank, and consequently pretty well protected by its neighbors. The drivers and muleteers had recovered their self-possession, and were all sitting or standing at their posts, with their miscellaneous arms ready for action. Not a human being had been hit as yet, and only three of the mules wounded, none of them seriously. The Apaches were all around the train, but none of them nearer than two hundred yards, and doing nothing but canter about and shout to each other.

"Where is Texas Smith?" demanded Thurstane, missing that mighty hunter, and wondering if he were a coward and had taken refuge in a wagon.

"He went off shutin' an hour ago," explained Phineas Glover. "Reckon he's astern somewhere."

Glover, by the way, had been useful. In the beginning of the affray he had brought his mule alongside of the headmost wagon, and there he had done really valuable service by blazing away alarmingly, though quite innocuously, at the gallopading enemy.

"It's a bad lookout for Texas," observed the Lieutenant "I shouldn't want to bet high on his getting back to us."

Coronado looked gloomy, fearing lest his trusted a.s.sa.s.sin was lost, and not knowing where he could pick up such another.

"And how are the ladies?" asked Thurstane, turning to Glover.

"Safe 's a bug in a rug," was the reply. "Seen to that little job myself.

Not a b.u.g.g.e.r in the hull crew been nigh 'em."

Thurstane cantered around to the front of the wagon which contained the two women, and called, "How are you?"

At the sound of his voice there was a rustle inside, and Clara showed her face over the shoulder of the driver.

"So you were not hurt?" laughed the young officer. "Ah! that's bully."

With a smile which was almost a boast, she answered, "And I was not very frightened."

At this, Aunt Maria struggled from between two rolls of bedding into a sitting posture and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "Of course not!"

"Did they hit you?" asked Clara, looking eagerly at Thurstane.

"How brave you are!" he replied, admiring her so much that he did not notice her question.

"But I do hope it is over," added the girl, poking her head out of the wagon. "Ah! what is that?"

With this little cry of dismay she pointed at a group of savages who had gathered between the train and the mouth of the canon ahead of it.

"They are the enemy," said Thurstane. "We may have another little tussle with them. Now lie down and keep close."

"Acquit yourselves like--men!" exhorted Aunt Maria, dropping back into her stronghold among the bedding.

Sergeant Meyer now approached Thurstane, touched his cap, and said, "Leftenant, here is brifate Sweeny who has not fired his beece once. I cannot make him fire."

"How is that, Sweeny?" demanded the officer, putting on the proper grimness. "Why haven't you fired when you were ordered?"

Sweeny was a little wizened shaving of an Irishman. He was not only quite short, but very slender and very lean. He had a curious teetering gait, and he took ridiculously short steps in marching, as if he were a monkey who had not learned to feel at ease on his hind legs. His small, wilted, wrinkled face, and his expression of mingled simplicity and shrewdness, were also monkey-like. At Thurstane's reprimand he trotted close up to him with exactly the air of a circus Jocko who expects a whipping, but who hopes to escape it by grinning.

"Why haven't you fired?" repeated his commander.

"Liftinint, I dasn't," answered Sweeny, in the rapid, jerking, almost inarticulate jabber which was his usual speech.

Now it is not an uncommon thing for recruits to dread to discharge their arms in battle. They have a vague idea that, if they bang away, they will attract the notice of some antagonist who will immediately single them out for retaliation.

"Are you afraid anybody will hit you?" asked Thurstane.

"No, I ain't, Liftinint," jabbered Sweeny. "I ain't afeard av them n.i.g.g.e.rs a bit. They may shoot their bow arrays at me all day if they want to. I'm afeard of me gun, Liftinint. I fired it wonst, an' it kicked me to blazes."

"Come, come! That won't do. Level it now. Pick out your man. Aim. Fire."

Thus constrained, Sweeny brought his piece down to an inclination of forty-five degrees, shut his eyes, pulled trigger, and sent a ball clean over the most distant Apaches. The recoil staggered him, but he recovered himself without going over, and instantly roared out a horse-laugh.