CHAPTER XII.

A NARROW ESCAPE.

George found his herdsman eager for news from the settlement, as he always was, but he had nothing to tell him that was very interesting. He could have given him some information that would have made him open his eyes and put him in fighting humor at once; but he thought it best to avoid that subject altogether. If he told Zeke that Uncle John had threatened to take his herd of cattle away from him, under the plea of reducing expenses, but really as George believed, for the purpose of turning it over to Ned, the old man would have been as angry as George was when he first learned of the fact. But the boy didn’t want to let Zeke know how mean his uncle was, and so he said nothing about his plans. They never could be carried out while Zeke was there to protect his stock, and George could afford to be magnanimous.

George and his herdsman made an early start on the following morning, and the third night found them at Catfish Falls. They now felt perfectly safe, for the raiders had never been known to penetrate so far into the country. Their depredations were principally confined to the counties bordering on the river, it being their object to stampede all the stock they could find in one night’s raid, and drive it across the river into Mexico, before the settlers could gather in sufficient numbers to pursue them. They tried as hard to avoid a fight as the ranchemen did to overtake them.

George made the camp and cooked the supper, and when they had satisfied their appetites, the former laid down on his blanket in front of the fire with his saddle for a pillow, and listened to Zeke, who talked and smoked incessantly. Their work for the day was over now. The cattle were always brought close in to camp at dark, the horses and mule were staked out, and the campers went to bed at an early hour. If they awoke during the night, they replenished the fire with some of the fuel that was always kept close at hand, and walked around the herd to see if there were any restless ones in it who felt inclined to stray away. George performed this necessary duty twice on this particular night making the first round about twelve o’clock. To his surprise, he found the most of the cattle on their feet, and saw that some of them were exhibiting unmistakable signs of uneasiness and alarm. They stood snuffing the air eagerly, carrying their heads high and their ears thrown forward, and now and then they would walk a few steps out of the herd, lower their horns and paw the ground as if challenging the object that had excited them, whatever it was, to come out and give them battle. The rest of the cattle were lying down, chewing their cuds contentedly, and apparently not at all disturbed by the antics of their nervous companions.

George threw himself flat upon the ground and swept his eyes around the horizon. In this position, he could distinctly see any object that might be approaching the camp (provided, of course, that it was taller than the grass) for it would be clearly outlined against the sky. But he could see nothing. He arose to his feet again and listened intently, but could hear nothing calculated to excite his alarm. The wolves which serenaded them every night were holding a concert a short distance away, and that made George believe that if there was any danger approaching, it was yet a long distance off; for he knew that the wolves would be the first to discover it, and that they would then bring their concert to a close and take to their heels.

“There’s something up,” thought George, once more turning his eyes toward the cattle. Some of the uneasy ones, reassured by his presence, were walking about among their companions, as if they were looking for a good place to lie down, while the others remained in a defiant attitude and snuffed the air as before. “There’s something up,” repeated George, “and I have been expecting it. I have felt very nervous and timid for two or three days, and I don’t know how to account for it. If there is anybody within hearing or smelling distance who has no business here, I can find it out.”

George walked back to the camp, picked up his rifle, and after unfastening the lasso with which his horse was confined, he jumped on the animal’s back without saddle or bridle and rode away in the darkness, paying no heed to a bray of remonstrance from Bony who followed as far as the length of his lariat would allow him to go. He rode out on the prairie for a hundred yards or more, and then stopped his horse and listened again. The animal stood perfectly quiet for a few seconds, looking first one way and then another, and turning his ears toward all points of the compass, and apparently satisfied with the result of his reconnoissance, he put down his head and began cropping the grass.

“Hold up, here!” exclaimed George, seizing the horse by the mane and tapping him gently on the side of his head with the muzzle of his rifle to make him turn around. “We have nothing to be frightened at yet—that’s evident. Now, old fellow, I shall leave you loose. Keep your ears open and wake us up if you hear anything!”

George rode back to camp and sought his blanket feeling a little more at his ease. He had as much faith in his horse as he had in Zeke (the latter used to say that he could smell an Indian or a Greaser at night as far as he could see him in the daytime), and since the animal could not discover anything suspicious, it was as good evidence as he wanted that there was nothing to fear. No doubt some of the wild members of the herd felt as nervous and uneasy as he did, and took their own way to show it.

Although George brought back to his blanket a most refreshing feeling of security, he did not sleep as soundly as he usually did. He went through all sorts of terrible things in his dreams, and started every time the fire snapped. He was wide awake again at one o’clock, and set out on his second tour of inspection. The moon, now nearly half an hour high, had brought up with it a cooling breeze which gently rustled the long grass of the prairie, and sent the sparks from the camp-fire circling high in the air. The wolves had closed their concert and gone off to find a more appreciative audience, and there was an air of peaceful quiet brooding over the scene. George forgot all his fears and continued his round with a light heart. He found the cattle quiet, but some of them had begun feeding and were straying away from the rest of the herd. While George was engaged in driving them back, and forcing the remainder of the herd into a more compact body, a yell, so sudden and startling that it made the cold chills creep all over him, arose on the air, and out from a little thicket of willows that grew a short distance from the belt in which the camp was located, dashed a party of horsemen who charged toward the herd at the top of their speed. They were Mexicans; George could see that at a glance. They had doubtless been hovering about the camp all night, and it was while they were working their way around to the leeward of the herd that their presence had been detected by the wakeful cattle.

George stood for an instant as if he were rooted to the ground; and then with a wild cry of alarm he dashed forward, running diagonally across the front of the herd, hoping almost against hope that he might succeed in passing them, and thus avoiding the rush which he knew would come in a moment more. It was the only way in which he could escape being trampled to death. He ran as he had never run before, but he had made scarcely half a dozen steps when a rumble like that of an avalanche sounded close at his side, telling him that the cattle were coming. The strongest fence that was ever built would not have stopped them now, and George, had he attempted to drive them back or turn them aside, would have been trampled under their feet like a blade of grass. He saw and fully realized his danger, but could not escape it. Even Zeke, who was as light of foot as an antelope, could not have saved himself by his speed; and George, giving himself up for lost, fell flat upon the ground, clasped his hands over his head and awaited his fate. By the merest chance he threw himself into a little excavation in the prairie, which, in the years gone by, had doubtless served as a wallow for some old patriarch of a buffalo; but now it was covered with grass, and there were two or three little willows growing out of the bottom of it.

This protection, slight as it was, saved the boy’s life. He had barely time to crowd himself close against the frail stems of the willows before the frantic cattle were upon him. The roar of their hoofs on the hard ground was almost deafening. It was louder than the roar of all the northers he had ever heard crowded into one; but even while he was wondering why some of the cattle did not jump upon him the roar subsided, and George, looking up through the willows which had been bent over his head, saw the moon shining down upon him. Every steer had jumped the wallow, and George had escaped with nothing more than a terrible fright. While he was congratulating himself upon his good fortune, a clatter of hoofs sounded near, and he ducked his head just as two horsemen, riding side by side, dashed over the wallow in pursuit of the flying herd.

The boy’s first thought, after he had satisfied himself that he had escaped without injury, was of Zeke. What had become of him? There was one thing certain—George knew it now as well as he did a few minutes later—and that was that the herdsman had made a fight, and a good one, too. Although the old fellow appeared to be a sound sleeper, he would jump to his feet the instant he heard any unusual noise, and he was wide awake the moment he opened his eyes. More than that, he kept his Winchester close at hand, and could discharge it with a rapidity and accuracy that George had tried in vain to imitate. Zeke was probably on his feet before the yell that frightened the cattle was half uttered, and as soon as he got there he was ready to begin shooting. Of course George had not heard the report of his rifle, for the rumble of that multitude of hoofs about his ears would have drowned the roar of a cannon.

“But I know, all the same, that he _did_ shoot, and that some of those raiders didn’t get away,” thought George, as he once more raised his head and looked over the grass in the direction of the camp. “I think I had better stay here. Zeke will know when the danger is over, and then he will call to me. I wonder if he is there now? Somebody is punching up the fire, sure!”

The old buffalo wallow into which George had thrown himself, was about a hundred yards distant from the willows, and the grass was so high that he could not see the camp; but he could see the smoke of the fire as it arose through the tops of the trees that hung over it. Just now the fire was blazing brightly, and the sparks were rising from it in volumes. This was what led George to believe that there was somebody in the camp. It couldn’t be one of the raiders, he told himself, for they never stopped. They stampeded the cattle and dashed on after them to get out of reach of the bullets in the herder’s rifles.

“Of course Zeke is there,” thought George as he arose from his place of concealment; but he had scarcely placed himself fairly upon his feet before he dropped back among the willows again. There were several figures moving about the fire, and there were riderless horses and mounted men near by. The men were all dressed in Mexican costume—the wide brims of their sombreros were plainly visible in the moonlight—and there were at least a dozen of them in sight. One of them seemed to be poking up the fire for the purpose of making as bright a light as possible, while the others were going into the willows with blazing fire-brands in their hands. Some of their companions had already gone in there armed in the same manner, for George could see the lights dancing about among the trees.

The boy saw all this during the instant of time he was on his feet, and when he dropped back into his concealment again, his fear had given place to a feeling of exultation. The raiders were searching the woods in the vicinity of the camp, and of course they could be looking for nobody but Zeke. Probably the old fellow had given them a very warm reception. No doubt he had tumbled three or four of them out of their saddles, and the survivors were hunting him up with the intention of taking vengeance on him if they caught him.

“But they’ll never catch him,” chuckled George, “because he’s too old a ‘coon. He has fought Indians too long to be beaten by a lot of lubberly Greasers.”

George drew the tops of the willows closer together, confining them in that position by twisting their branches, and having thus formed a screen that was large enough to cover his head, he raised himself upon his knees, so that he could look over the grass and watch the motions of the raiders. They were certainly looking for somebody, and they seemed resolved to find him, too, for they did not grow discouraged and go away, as George hoped they would. Their failure only seemed to make them the more determined. First one and then another seized fire-brands and joined their companions in the woods, and finally those who were mounted, swung themselves out of their saddles and went in too, leaving the camp to take care of itself.

“I wonder what Zeke has done to make them so persistent!” said George to himself. “Perhaps they’ve got an old grudge against him. They might as well go away, for they’ll not find him. He’s safe long before this time, and if I could only make my horse hear me, I’d soon be safe too.”

George could always find something to feel happy over, no matter how unpleasant the situation in which he might be placed, and he found something now. He had lost his fine herd of cattle, but Zeke was left to him, and so were his horse and pack-mule. The former had been stampeded with the cattle, but George knew he would not run far before he would leave them and strike a straight course for home. The two Mexicans who had followed the herd to head it off and turn it away from the settlements toward the river, would not bother their heads about him, for while they had three hundred fat cattle to look out for, they could not afford to waste time in pursuing a single horse. Bony was still staked out near the camp, and so was Zeke’s nag. They both made the most desperate efforts to escape with the herd, but the lariats with which they were confined were too strong to be broken, and the picket-pins were driven so firmly into the ground that they could not be easily pulled up. The Mexicans, when they were ready to leave the camp, would probably turn these animals loose, expecting them to follow their own horses, just as Silk Stocking had followed off the raiders who made the attack on the rancho; but that was something Bony would not do. He was very much afraid of strangers, and when left to himself he would make the best of his way home.

The search for Zeke was continued? until broad daylight, and all this while George lay in his concealment watching the motions of the raiders and wondering what his herdsman had done to make the thieves so anxious to find him. When day began to dawn he discovered something that seemed to explain it all: there were five wounded men sitting and lying beside the fire. George knew that they were wounded, for he could see that they wore bandages, and that one who limped considerably and used a stick to walk with, would now and then get up to bring a cup of water from the bayou to two of his companions who kept their blankets. Probably one of these men was the leader of the band, and that was the reason why the others were so determined to find Zeke. But they had to give up the search and go away without him, as George knew they would. Shortly after daylight they began to come into camp by twos and threes, and when they were all assembled George counted eighteen of them. They talked earnestly together for a few minutes and then set about preparing a hasty breakfast, helping themselves bountifully to the contents of the pack-saddle, and using the cooking utensils which George had provided for his own use and Zeke’s.

George waited with no little impatience to find out what they were going to do when they made an end of the bacon and coffee, and was very glad to see that they were preparing for an immediate departure. When all was ready the wounded members of the band were assisted into their saddles, Zeke’s horse and George’s pack-mule were set at liberty, and the raiders moved slowly along the willows in the direction the cattle had taken when they were stampeded. It was a wonder that their suspicions were not aroused by the actions of the mule which, foolish as mules generally are, ran at once to the buffalo wallow in which George was concealed, and not content with shying at the sight of it and giving it a wide berth, as Zeke’s horse did, Bony circled around it two or three times, and finally stopping, thrust out his neck, threw his long ears forward and looked suspiciously at the crouching form of his master.

George, who had been in a fever of suspense for long hours, and who began to breathe more freely when he saw the raiders moving away, was frightened again; but, as it happened, the thieves paid no attention to the mule’s actions. Better than that, Zeke’s horse kept on his way without stopping, and Bony, seeing that he was going to be left behind, started in pursuit. The danger was over now, but George was much too wary to run any risks. He saw the raiders disappear over the nearest swell, but he allowed another hour to pass before he left his hiding-place. Then he moved very cautiously, crawling along on his hands and knees, stopping every few feet to look over the grass and listen, and examining the ground about the camp very thoroughly before he ventured into the woods.

He found the camp in the greatest confusion. His rifle and revolvers were gone, so were his blankets and poncho, and also a good portion of the contents of the pack-saddle; but there was still a little of the bacon and hard-tack left, and the raiders had forgotten to take his haversack and frying-pan. He replenished the fire at once, and while waiting for it to get fairly started, employed himself in cutting up the bacon with an old rusty hunting-knife which one of the thieves had probably left in exchange for his own new one. While he was thus engaged he did not neglect to keep an eye open for any straggling raiders who might have fallen behind the main body; but there were none in sight. He placed the bacon in the frying-pan, and when it was done to his satisfaction he put it into his haversack, together with the small supply of hard-tack that was left, extinguished the fire and set out for home.

“I am glad the thieves left me provisions enough to last me until I can get more,” said George, to himself. “If I have to travel all the way on foot, it will take me four or five days to reach the nearest rancho, and I have no fears of getting hungry during that time. What brought those raiders so far from the river? That’s what I can’t understand.”

During the two days that followed, while the young cattle-herder was trudging painfully over the lonely prairie, he had ample leisure to turn this question over in his mind. He travelled early and late, but his progress was necessarily slow, for one who spends the most of his time in the saddle, finds it hard work to go on foot, and soon grows weary. He kept a bright lookout for Zeke, and stopped on the top of every swell to scan the prairie before and on both sides of him, in the hope of discovering his horse or pack-mule; but Zeke was miles ahead of him, hastening toward the settlement, intent on alarming the ranchemen in time to cut the raiders off from the river, while Bony and Ranger were making the best of their way toward home.

“They are all safe, I know, for they are able to take care of themselves. So am I; but there’s no fun in looking forward to three days more of such walking as I have had. I shouldn’t mind it so much if I hadn’t lost my cattle,” said George, with a long-drawn sigh. “Those lazy Greasers have robbed me of years of hard work, and now I must begin all over again, or else go to herding cattle for Uncle John. Of course I can’t loaf about the house all the time and do nothing, as Ned does. Hallo!”

While George was talking to himself in this way he came to the top of a ridge, and found before him a long line of willows which fringed the banks of a water-course. A solitary horse was feeding near the willows, and this it was that attracted the boy’s attention and called forth the exclamation with which he finished his soliloquy. The sight of the animal alarmed him, for it was not at all likely that a horse, wearing a saddle and bridle, would be feeding contentedly in that wilderness, so far from all signs of civilization, unless there was some one with him. George dropped to the ground, and ran his eyes along the willows in search of a camp. If there was one in the neighborhood he could not find it. There was no smoke to be seen, nor were there any other indications of the presence of human beings.

“But there’s somebody here all the same,” thought the boy, shifting his position a little, so that he could obtain a better view of the willows, “for that horse never came here without a rider. Somebody has stopped in the willows to rest, and he’s a Mexican, too. I know it by the silver ornaments on the saddle. I wish I could think up some way to capture that horse. Shall I try it?”

Not knowing what else to do just then, George lay there in the grass and considered the matter. Weary and footsore as he was, the thought of finishing his journey on horseback was a most agreeable one. The animal was loose—when he raised his head, George could see that he was not confined by a lariat—but if he attempted to creep up to him the horse would doubtless take fright and run off; and that would excite the suspicions of his owner, who might be tempted to send a bullet from his carbine in that direction. There was too much danger in it George found when he came to think it over. He sighed regretfully, thought almost with a shudder, of the long, weary miles that lay between him and the nearest rancho, and was about to crawl back down the swell again, when he was astonished almost beyond measure, to hear his own name pronounced in a weak and trembling, but still distinct voice.

“George! George Ackerman!” came the hail from the willows.

George jumped to his feet, and looking in the direction from which the voice sounded, saw a sombrero waved in the air, and could dimly discern the figure of a man, dressed in Mexican costume, who was sitting on the ground, with his back against one of the willows.

“George!” repeated the man.

“Hallo!” was the reply.

“Come here, will you? I am badly hurt and in need of help!”

George grew more and more astonished. The man was a Mexican beyond a doubt, but the voice sounded strangely familiar.

“Don’t be afeared, George!” continued the man, in a pleading tone. “I couldn’t hurt you if I wanted to! I’ve got something to tell you!”

“Who are you?” asked the boy.

“Why, don’t you know Springer, who used to herd cattle for your father?”

Yes, George knew him, and he didn’t know anything good of him either.

“If you are Springer,” he shouted “what are you doing there with those clothes on?”

“Come here, an’ I’ll tell you all about it!” was the answer. “I’ll tell you something else, too—something that’ll make you open your eyes. Do come, George, and give me a drink of water! I’ve got a chunk of lead through each leg!”

“Aha!” said George, who thought he understood the matter now. “You were with the raiders, and Zeke got two pulls at you with his Winchester!”

As he said this he ran down the swell, and in a few minutes more was standing beside the wounded man. It was Springer, sure enough, but he was so much changed that George could scarcely recognise him. His face was very pale and his strong frame was convulsed with agony. The sash he usually wore around his waist had been cut in two, and the pieces were bound tightly about his legs above the knee to stanch the flow of blood from the wounds made by the herdsman’s rifle. He was a hard-looking fellow, and any one would have taken him for just what George knew him to be—a cattle-thief.

Without stopping to ask any more questions George seized the man’s hat, and hastening to the bayou presently returned with the crown filled with water. The wounded raider drank eagerly and sank back against his tree with a sigh of great satisfaction.