Part 12

While he waited for the horse to appear he turned upon his snooping men and drove them to their mounts with curses. Evidently it was no sinecure to command in the army of the liberation, and the veiled mutterings of his followers showed that they were little better than tigers in leash.

Mounted upon horses, mules, and even burros, armed with every conceivable weapon from a musket to standard repeating rifles, they were a tatterdemalion army, more fit for "treason, strategems, and spoils" than the sterner duties of war.

Bud looked them over closely, well satisfied to have his back against a wall, and when the low-browed retainer came hurrying back with the horse he quickly took the worthless receipt and watched them on their way. Then, as the last camp-follower disappeared, he ran for his saddle and rifle and within a minute he was mounted and away.

There were rebels below him--very likely there were more to come--the only safe place for Copper Bottom was over the hills at Fortuna. Without stopping for path or trail he headed straight north-west over the ridges, riding as the cowboys do when they rake the range for cattle. Hardly had he topped the first high crest when he came in sight of Amigo, loaded down with his cartridge-belts and carrying his heavy Mauser.

In a long, shambling trot the Yaqui was drifting along the hillside with the free grace of a wild creature, and when Hooker pulled down his horse to keep pace with him he laughed and motioned him on. Taking the lead, he loped on over hogback and _barranca_, picking out the best trail by instinct and setting such a pace that Bud was hard-pressed to keep up with him.

He had heard it said that in the Yaqui country no white man, no matter how well he was mounted, could outdistance the Indians on foot, and now he knew it was true. But why this killing haste on the part of Amigo? He had neither friends nor kin in town; why, then, should he run so fast to warn them of the enemy?

They racked on, up one hill and down another, while the _insurrectos_ followed the cañon that swung to the south, and finally, in a last scramble, they mounted a rocky ridge and looked down upon Old Fortuna.

Already the hard-driven peons were out in the fields at work and smoke was rising from the _mescal_ still. Aragon was busy, but his labors would be worse than wasted if the red-flaggers took him prisoner. As Bud breathed his horse he hesitated whether to ride back and warn him or press on and notify Fortuna; but even for that brief spell the Yaqui could not wait.

"_Adios_," he said, coming close and holding out his black hand; "I go this way!" And he pointed along the ridge.

"But why?" said Bud, still at a loss to account for his haste. Then, seeing the reticence in the Indian's eyes, he thrust out his hand in return.

"_Adios, amigo mio!_" he replied, and with a quick grip the Yaqui was gone.

With that same deceptive speed he shambled through the bushes, still lugging the heavy rifle and making for higher ground. Bud knew he had some purpose--he even had a sneaking idea that it was to take pot-shots at Captain del Rey--but six months in Mexico had made him careless, and he half hoped the Yaqui would win.

The _capitan_ had it coming to him for his brutality, but with Aragon it was different--Aragon had a wife and daughter--and, with the memory of Gracia in his mind, Bud sent his horse plunging down the ridge to warn them before it was too late.

There were some brush fences to be jumped, but Copper Bottom took them flying, and as they cut into the river trail he made the mud-puddles splash. Across the fields to the south Bud could see the peons running for cover--the _insurrectos_ must be in sight beyond the hills.

He was going south, they were moving west, but it was five miles north again to the town. Speed was what was needed and Copper Bottom gave his best. They dashed into Fortuna like a whirlwind, and Hooker raised his voice in a high yell.

"_Insurrectos!_" he shouted. "_La drones! Pr-onto á_ Fortuna!"

There was a hush, a moment's silence, and then heads appeared from every window and women ran screaming with the news. Aragon came rushing from the store and confronted him angrily; then, reading conviction in his tones, he called for horses and ran frantically into the house.

A shrill screech came from the hillside, where a serving-woman had scampered to view the valley, and, as she pointed her finger and screamed, mothers laid hold of their little ones and started up the valley on foot.

Still the men ran about in the horse-pen and Aragon adjured his womenfolk in the house. Burning with impatience, Bud spurred his way to the corral where they were fumbling with reata and rigging and dropped a rope on the first horse he saw. Then he snatched a side-saddle from a trembling peon and slapped it on the brute's back. Grabbing up the bridle, he led the horse back to the house and bridled it while he shouted for haste.

Still the women tarried, and the sound of galloping came from the south. Then, as all seemed lost, the Mexicans came bumping out from the stable with the family coach, Aragon and his wife leaped in, and Gracia, neatly attired in a riding-skirt, came tripping down the steps.

Even in such times as these she seemed to realize her first duty to herself, and Hooker had to gaze for a moment before he helped her up. She offered her foot and vaulted lightly into the saddle; the coach went pounding on ahead; and as the servants scattered before her she galloped off at the side of Bud.

Behind them the rumble of distant hoofs rose up like the roaring of waters, and the shrieks of fleeing women echoed from the roadside, but once safely in the cañon their lead was never lessened and, with coach-horses galloping and postilions lashing from both sides, the whole cavalcade swept into the plaza while the town of Fortuna went mad.

Already the great whistle was blowing hoarsely, its deep reverberations making the air tremble as if with fear. Americans were running back and forth, distributing arms and rushing their women to cover; Don Juan, his chin quivering with excitement, was imploring all comers to be calm; and the Aragons, coming flying up to the door, added the last touch to the panic.

They with their own eyes had seen the rebels; they were riding in from the south! Other men, equally excited, swore they were coming from the north, and a disorderly body of Sonoran miners, armed as if by magic with guns which had long lain hidden, banked themselves about the store and office and clamored for more and more cartridges. Then a rip of gun-fire echoed from across the cañon, and the miners made a rush to the attack.

The whistle, which had obscured all sound as a cloud obscures the light, stopped suddenly in its roar, and the crowd at the hotel became calm. The superintendent, a wiry, gray-haired little man with decision in every movement, came running from his fortlike house on the hill and ordered all the women to take shelter there and take their children with them.

So, while the rifles rattled and stray bullets began to knock mud from the walls, they went straggling up the hill, rich and poor, patrician and peon, while the air was rent by the wails of the half-Indian Mexican women who held themselves as good as captured by the _revoltosos_, concerning whose scruples they entertained no illusions.

The women of the aristocracy bore themselves with more reserve, as befitting their birth and station, and the Americans who gathered about them with their protecting rifles pretended that all would be well; but in the mind of everyone was that same terror which found expression in the peon wail and, while scattered rebels and newly armed miners exchanged volleys on both sides of the town, the non-combatant Americans sought out every woman and rushed her up to the big house. There, if worst came to worst, they could make a last stand, or save them by a ransom.

So, from the old woman who kept the candy stand in the plaza to the wives of the miners and the cherished womenfolk of the landowners, they were all crowded inside the broad halls of the big house; and seventy-odd Americans, armed with company rifles, paced nervously along the broad verandas or punched loopholes in the adobe walls that enclosed the summer-garden behind.

Along with the rest went Hooker and Gracia, and, though her mother beckoned and her father frowned sternly, the wilful daughter of the Aragons did not offer to leave him as they scampered up the hill. In fact, she rode close beside him, spurring when he spurred and, finally, when the shower of stray bullets had passed, she led on around the house.

"Won't you help me take my horse inside the walls?" she asked. Bud followed after her, circling the fortress whose blank adobe walls gave shelter to the screaming women, and she smiled upon him with the most engaging confidence.

"I know you will have to go soon," she said, "and I suppose I've got to be shut in with those creatures, but we must be sure to save our horses. Some bullets might hit them, you know, and then we could not run away!

"You remember your promise!" she reminded, as Bud gazed at her in astonishment. "Ah, yes, I knew you did--otherwise you would not have picked such a good horse for me. This roan is my father's best riding-horse. You must put yours inside the wall with him, and when the time is right we will get them and ride for the line."

"What?" cried Hooker incredulously, "with the country full of rebels? They're liable to take the town in half an hour!"

"No, indeed they will not!" responded Gracia with spirit. "You do not understand the spirit of us Sonorans! Can't you see how the firing has slackened? The miners have driven your rebels back already, and they will do more--they will follow them up and kill them! Then, when the rebels are in flight and Del Rey and his _rurales_ are away, that will be a good time for us to slip off and make our dash for the line!"

"Nothing doing!" announced Hooker, as he dismounted at the corral. "You don't know what you're talking about! But I will leave my horse here," he added. "I sure don't want _him_ to get hurt."

"But you promised!" protested Gracia weakly.

"Promised nothing!" retorted Bud ungraciously. "I promised to take care of you, didn't I? Well, what's the use of talking, then? You better stay right here, where you're safe. Come on, let's go to the house!"

"No!" cried Gracia, her dark eyes turning misty with imminent tears. "Oh, Mr. Hooker!" she burst out, "didn't I keep them all waiting while I put on this riding-skirt? I thought you had come to take me away! What do I care to be safe? I want to be free! I want to run away--and go across the line to dear Phil!" she faltered. Then she looked up at him sharply and her voice took on an accusing tone.

"Aha!" she said, as if making some expected discovery, "so _that_ is it! I thought perhaps you were _afraid_!"

"What?" demanded Bud, put suddenly upon the defensive.

"I might have known it," soliloquized Gracia with conviction. "You are jealous of dear Phil!"

"Who? Me?" cried Hooker, smiling down at her grimly. "Well, let it go at that," he said, as she regarded him with an arch smile. "I'd certainly be a fool to take all those chances for nothing. Let him steal his own girl--that's what I say!"

"Now that, Mr. Hooker," burst out Gracia in a passion, "is very unkind--and rude! Am I a woman of the town, to be stolen by one man or another? Am I--"

"That's what you would be," put in Bud, with brutal directness, "if these rebels got hold of you. No, ma'am, I wouldn't take you out of this town for a hundred thousand dollars. You don't know what you're talking about, that's all! Wait till the fighting is over--Gee! Did you hear that? Come on, let's get into the house!"

He ducked suddenly as a bullet went _spang_ against the corrugated iron roof above them and, seizing her by the hand, he half dragged her through a side door and into the summer garden.

Here a sudden outcry of women's voices assailed their ears like a rush of wind and they beheld peon mothers running to and fro with their screaming children clasped to their breasts or dragging at their skirts. A few helpless men were trying to keep them quiet, but as the bullets began to thud against the adobe walls the garden became a bedlam.

Gracia stood and surveyed the scene for a moment, ignoring the hulking Bud with disdainful eyes. Then she snatched her hand indignantly away and ran to pick up a child. That was all, but Hooker knew what she thought of him.

He passed through the house, hoping to discover where she had gone, but all he heard was her commanding voice as she silenced the wailing women, and, feeling somehow very much out of place, he stepped forth into the open.

After all, for a man of his build, the open was best. Let the white-handed boys stay with the ladies--they understood their ways.

XXII

The superintendent's house stood on a low bench above the town, looking out over all the valley, but protected by a high hill behind, upon the summit of which was placed a mammoth black water-tank.

In its architecture the _casa grande_ was an exact replica of a hot-country _hacienda_, a flat-roofed, one-storied square of adobe bricks, whitewashed to keep off the sun and presenting on three sides nothing but the dead walls of house and garden, with dense trees planted near for shade. Along the front was a long arcade, the _corredor_, graced by a series of massive arches which let in the light and air. Inside were low chambers and long passages; and, behind, the _patio_ and garden of orange and fig trees.

Built for a sumptuous dwelling, it became in a moment a fort and, with men on the high hill by the tank, it was practically impregnable to direct assault.

As Hooker stepped out onto the covered porch with his saddle-gun in his hand he became simply one more of a band of excited Americans, all armed and ready to defend the house to the last. Some were pacing back and forth in the _corredor_, others were hurrying up from the Mexican quarters with a last belated handful of women, but the major portion were out on the open bench, either gazing north and south at the scenes of the distant firing or engaging in a curio-mad scramble for any spent bullet that struck.

The fighting, such as there was, was mostly up the cañon, where a large party of Sonoran miners had rushed in pursuit of the rebels. The firing down the cañon in the direction of Old Fortuna had died away to nothing, and for the moment if seemed as if the futile charge and retreat were the beginning and the end of the battle.

A party of rebels had penetrated clear into the town, but it was apparently more by accident than intention, and they had been quick to beat a retreat. As for the main command of the _insurrectos_, they were reported at Chular, six miles up the railroad, where they had surrounded and taken a small mining camp and captured a train at the summit.

The column to the south--the one which Hooker had encountered--had taken to the high hills west of the town, and, along the sky-line of the buttelike summits, they could now be seen in scattered bands making their way to the north.

The defenders of Fortuna consisted of a rag-tag garrison of twenty Federals and the hot-headed, charging miners. But apparently that was a combination hard to beat, for, while the Federals entrenched themselves behind the black tank on the hill and prepared to protect the town, the Sonorans in shouting masses drove everything before them and marched on to attack Chular.

But in this they made a mistake, for the rebel scouts, seeing the great body of defenders pressing on up the narrow cañon, rode back and informed the tricky Bernardo Bravo. He would be a poor general indeed who could not see the opening that was offered and, while the valiant Sonorans pursued the rebel cavalry up the pass, Bernardo Bravo sent the half of his thousand men to cut off their retreat from behind.

Along the broad top of the mountain above they came scampering by tens and twenties, closing in with a vastly superior force upon the now defenseless town. In the depths of the cañon below the miners were still chasing the elusive cavalry, their firing becoming faint as they clambered on toward the summit and the rebel headquarters at Chular.

They had, in fact, been handled like children, and the Americans joined in contemptuous curses of their mistaken bravery as they beheld in what straits it had left them.

Forbidden by the superintendent to participate in the combat, yet having in their care the women of the camp, they were compelled to stand passively aside while rebels by the hundred came charging down the ridges. Only in the last resort, and when all diplomacy and Federal defense had failed, would they be allowed to so much as cock a rifle. And yet--well, twenty determined Americans might easily turn back this charge.

Taking advantage of his Mexican citizenship, Hooker was already on the run for the trenches when the superintendent stopped him with a look.

"Let the Mexicans fight it out," he said. "They might resent it if you took sides, and that would make it bad for us. Just wait a while--you never can tell what will happen. Perhaps the _rurales_ and Federals will stand them off."

"What, that little bunch?" demanded Bud, pointing scornfully at the handful of defenders who were cowering behind their rock-piles. "Why, half of them _pelónes_ don't know what a gun was made for, and the _rurales_--"

"Well, the rebels are the same," suggested the superintendent pacifically. "Let them fight it out--we need every American we can get, so just forget about being a Mexican."

"All right," agreed Bud, as he yielded reluctantly to reason. "It ain't because I'm a Mexican citizen--I just want to stop that rush."

He walked back to the house, juggling his useless gun and keeping his eye on the distant ridges. And then, in a chorus of defiant yells, the men in the Federal trenches began to shoot.

In an air-line the distance was something over a mile, but at the first scattering volley the rebels halted and fired a volley in return. With a vicious _spang_ a few stray bullets smashed against the reverberating steel tank, but no one was hurt, and the defenders, drunk with valor, began to shoot and yell like mad.

The bullets of the rebels, fired at random, struck up dust-jets in every direction, and from the lower part of the town came the shouting of the non-combatant Mexicans as they ran here and there for shelter. But by the trenches, and in the rear of the black tank, the great crowd of onlookers persisted, ducking as each successive bullet hit the tank and shouting encouragement as the defenders emptied their rifles and reloaded with clip after clip.

The rifles rattled a continuous volley; spent bullets leaped like locusts across the flat; men ran to and fro, now crouching behind the tank, now stepping boldly into the open; and the defiant shouts of the defenders almost drowned the wails of the women. Except for one thing it was a battle--there was nobody hurt.

For the first half-hour the Americans stayed prudently under cover, busying themselves at the suggestion of a few American women in providing a first-aid hospital on the sheltered porch. Then, as no wounded came to fill it and the rebels delayed their charge, one man after another climbed up to the trenches, ostensibly to bring down the injured.

As soldiers and bystanders reported no one hit, and the bullets flew harmlessly past, their solicitude turned rapidly to disgust and then to scorn. Strange as it may seem, they were disappointed at the results, and their remarks were derogatory as they commented on the bravery of _pelónes_ and Mexicans in general.

From a dread of imminent attack, of charging rebels and retreating defenders, and a fight to the death by the house, they came suddenly to a desire for blood and battle, for dead men and the cries of the wounded; and all fear of the _insurrectos_ left them.

"Come away, boys," grunted the burly roadmaster, who up to then had led in the work; "we wasted our time on that hospital--there'll be no wounded. Let's take ourselves back to the house and have a quiet smoke."

"Right you are, Ed," agreed the master mechanic, as he turned upon his heel in disgust. "This ain't war--them Mexicans think they're working for a moving-picture show!"

"I bet you I can go up on that ridge," announced Hooker, "and clean out the whole bunch with my six-shooter before you could bat your eye."

But the superintendent was not so sure.

"Never mind, boys," he said. "We're worth a lot of ransom money to those rebels and they won't give up so quick. And look at this now--my miners coming back! Those are the boys that will fight! Wait till Chico and Ramon Mendoza get after them!"

He pointed as he spoke to a straggling band of Sonorans, led by the much-vaunted Mendoza brothers, as they hurried to save the town, and a cheer went up from the trenches as the Federals beheld reenforcements. But a change had come over the fire-eating miners, and they brought other rebels in their wake.

As they trudged wearily into town and sought shelter among the houses a great body of men appeared on the opposite ridge, firing down at them as they retreated. The battle rapidly turned into a long-distance shooting contest, with the rebels on the ridges and the defenders in the valley, and finally, as the day wore on and a thunderstorm came up, it died out altogether and the rebels turned back to their camp.

Except for one lone Federal who had shot himself by accident there was not a single defender hurt, and if the enemy had suffered losses it was only by some such chance. But when the Sonoran patriots, holding up their empty belts, came clamoring for ammunition, the men by the big house took in the real catastrophe of the battle.

Seventeen thousand rounds of the precious thirty-thirties had been delivered to the excited miners and now, except for what few the Americans had saved, there was not a cartridge in camp. Very soberly the superintendent assured the leaders that he had no more. They pointed at the full belts of the American guard and demanded them as their right; and when the Americans refused to yield they flew into a rage and threatened.

All in all, it was a pitiful exhibition of hot-headedness and imbecility, and only the firmness of the superintendent prevented a real spilling of blood. The Mexicans retired in a huff and broke into the _cantina_, and as the night came on the valley re-echoed to their drunken shoutings.

Such was war as the Sonorans conceived it. When Hooker, standing his guard in the _corredor_, encountered Gracia Aragon on her evening walk, he could scarcely conceal a grin.

"What are you laughing at, Señor Hooker?" she demanded with asperity. "Is it so pleasant, with a houseful of frightened women and screaming children, that you should make fun of our plight?"

"No, indeed," apologized Bud; "nothing like that. Sure must be bad in there--I stay outside myself. But I reckon it'll soon be over with. The Mexicans here in town have shot off all their ammunition and I reckon the rebels have done the same. Like as not they'll all be gone to-morrow, and then you can go back home."

"Oh, thank you for thinking about me!" she returned with a scornful curl of the lip. "But if all men were as open as you, Mr. Hooker, we women would never need to ask a question. This morning you told me I did not know what I was talking about--now I presume you are thinking what cowards the Mexicans are!

"Oh, I know! You need not deny it! You are nothing but a great big--_Tejano_! Yes, I was going to say 'brute,' but you are a friend of dear Phil's, and so I will hold my tongue. If it wasn't for that, I'd--" She paused, leaving him to guess.