CHAPTER XIX

A Blow in the Dark

Perhaps, the thought leaped into his head, lending speed to his retreat, if he hurried, he might even now get back to camp and summon help in time to apprehend the rascals.

And always as he crept along he had the sensation that someone was following him, keeping step with him. Once he could almost have sworn that he detected a footstep other than his own. Yet, when he stopped, nothing but deep silence greeted him. There was no sign of a human presence.

He had begun to fear that, in the darkness he had mistaken his path again when a soft whinning right ahead of him, made his heart jump with gladness. A few steps more and he could see the bulk of his bay horse looming against the dusk. The animal was straining a little at the leash and stamping impatiently.

“Getting hungry, poor old boy,” thought Phil, adding, with a grin, as he stepped out into the open. “And he isn’t the only one. Say, won’t the fellows open their eyes when I spin my yarn to them? They’ll be green with envy to think they weren’t in on it. Hi, old boy,” this last softly to the big horse, as he began to unfasten the tethering rope, “it’s us for camp now as hard as you can gallop.”

He was about to swing into the saddle when again the suspicion, amounting, this time, to certainty that someone was following him, caused him to turn sharply about.

A rustling of underbrush, the swift vision of a villainous club upraised to strike, then—a terrific pain in his head, a drifting off into illimitable space, then—nothingness!

It was a long time before Phil awoke to the consciousness of anything. And then, the pain in his head was so unbearable that he almost wished he might go back to sleep again.

He was lying on something that bumped horribly and it was several minutes before he summoned interest enough in life to find out what it was. There was a terrible pain in his wrists and his whole body felt numb and dead.

At last he was able to prop his swollen eyelids open far enough to find that he was bound fast to his horse and that a villainous-looking person, mounted on a rangy Mexican pony was urging the big bay on at a pace that was almost a gallop. No wonder his head ached, bound as he was, face down to the loping animal.

There were other horsemen in the party, a considerable number, Phil thought, judging from the noise they made. They were evidently quite hilarious, gutturally shouting coarse jokes back and forth.

Because the pain in his head was so great, Phil closed his eyes. He tried to think. These were Mexicans who had captured him, without a doubt, in all probability a band of the dreaded outlaws. If they were some of Espato’s men, then indeed was he in a tight fix. Espato had sworn to have the lives of his chums and himself. Well, here was his chance to have a hack at one of them anyway. It is characteristic of Phil that, even in this moment of danger, he could spare a thought for his chums. He was glad that Captain Bradley had been firm in his refusal to allow them to accompany him on this adventure. At least they were safe at camp.

At thought of camp Phil shivered a little, a wave of intense longing engulfing him. Would he ever see camp again? Then, because it made his head ache worse than ever, he tried not to think. It was no use. The horrible thoughts whirled about in his aching brain maddeningly.

Espato! Those tales they had heard in camp of his cruelty to prisoners. Such hideous things had been done in that remote camp of his in the mountains. Phil shuddered again and the slight motion caused the bonds about his wrists to cut deeper into the flesh. They sure had trussed him up neatly, he thought with a grimace of pain as he crouched closer to the neck of his horse.

The Mexican who was riding next to him noticed the motion and laughed hoarsely.

“Aha, young feller,” he cried in his broken English. “You have decide to come back to this cold world, eh? I theenk you will find it one verry cold world—yess.” Again he laughed and the laughter was taken up by the others, sneering, mocking, making the blood run cold in Phil’s veins.

The next moment he was on fire with rage. Cowards—to taunt a fellow when they knew he was helpless to strike back. Just let them loose those cruel bonds from his hand and feet and he’d show ’em.

But in his heart he knew there would be no loosening of those bonds and he had to grit his teeth to bear the pain of them. The Mexicans continued to laugh and jeer at him and he tried his best to close his ears to their taunts. If only he could manage to keep quiet! If only he could make them think that he did not hear!

He knew the hopelessness, under the circumstances, of answering them. It would only be giving them the chance they were looking for, to hurl further insult upon him.

Those bonds, those bonds—if only he might have them loosened for half a moment, just long enough to allow the blood to flow into his numbed fingers. A groan found its way to his tightly pressed lips, but he managed, somehow, to stifle it. He would not make an outcry. He would die before he would let them know how he was suffering! Doggedly, he set his teeth still harder.

He tried to think back to that moment when he had been struck. He remembered thinking in that second of time before the uplifted cudgel had crashed down on his head that he had been discovered by some of Murray’s gang. That was the natural supposition. Having caught him in the act of eavesdropping and fearing that he knew too much of their plans, the thieves would want nothing so much as to put him out of the way.

But it had not been one of Murray’s gang who had struck that murderous blow. That was moderately certain since he was now riding over the desert, a captive of Mexican bandits. It had almost surely been a Mexican who had attacked him.

Then, like a flash, came the recollection, of his strange certainty that someone had been dogging his steps back there in the woods. He had thought it only his imagination, when, in reality it had been fact.

Followed as a cat follows a mouse, silently, relentlessly, awaiting the right moment to spring. At the thought, a creepy sensation traveled up and down his spine. It was horrible to think of himself being followed like that.

And now, that the cat had caught the mouse, he supposed that the cat would proceed to play with it, in the playful little manner that is common to cats.

Phil’s heart misgave him. It was not a pleasant thought, being played with by Espato! The old scoundrel seldom killed his victims outright. He took plenty of time about it so that he might enjoy the execution to the full. Espato was even longer on torture than the cat. Having come this far in his reflections, Phil refused to think further. It wouldn’t do to think very much about such things.

Then he thought of Murray and his gang of thieves going scot free and he was forced to smother another groan. If only he might have managed to get his message through to camp before his capture. It would have been such a great thing, to have apprehended the thieves and perhaps have restored the entire amount of money stolen from the Castleton bank. And now they in all probability would be allowed to get away without any punishment at all.

He had little time to think about this however, for the sinister little group of horsemen soon deserted the desert for the woods and there began a slow and tortuous climb up a steep, rocky, mountain path, that seemed to Phil a never-ending horror.

The little Mexican ponies made easy work of it, but Phil’s big horse, urged on relentlessly by the Mexican who rode close to them, stumbled several times and once almost fell, wrenching Phil’s tortured wrists so horribly that in spite of all he could do a little whispered cry of pain escaped him.

“Aha,” cried the Mexican delightedly. “The Americano suffers. Good. But it ees nothing to what he will suffer. Be prepared, Americano. Espato, he wait for you!”