CHAPTER III.

THE COMANCHES AND THEIR PRIZE.

The gray dawn of early morning was just beginning to break over the prairie when the “Trappers of the Gila” were active. Such men are invariably early risers, unless they have been deprived of several night’s rest, and desire to make it entirely up at one stretch.

Harling’s culinary skill had given him the position of caterer to the company’s appetite, and from what has been mentioned in the preceding chapter, there will be but little doubt but that he had succeeded admirably.

The time to which we refer being quite modern, the party always went provided with lucifer matches, instead of resorting to the use of the tedious flint and tender. Of course they were easily carried in such a manner as to be impervious to damp, and to be reliable at all times.

Abundant fuel was close at hand, and not five minutes intervened after their rising, when a bright fire was crackling and snapping, and the cook had another goodly-sized piece of antelope steaming and sizzling, giving out an odor enough to drive a hungry man distracted. A clear icy cold stream a hundred yards away, afforded them the means of performing their morning ablutions.

The breakfast was hastily swallowed, and just as the first beams of the morning sun came up the eastern horizon, the three hunters, mounted on their animals, were galloping over the prairie, toward Old Man’s Point, quite a noted place, which could be distinguished on the plains for a distance of twenty miles.

At the very moment of starting, Lancaster looked to the north, where a dark point, apparently the size of a man’s body could be distinguished. This he announced was the point of rendezvous, so well known to parties crossing the plain and passing into Lower California. As it was in plain sight, all the party had to do was to ride straight toward it.

The hunters were galloping in this leisurely manner, when Fred Wainwright suddenly exclaimed with no little excitement,

“Yonder come the emigrants this very minute.”

As he spoke he pointed away to the east, where in the distance could be seen a cloud of smoke, as if made by the trampling of animals. Nothing else could be distinguished, but a moment’s glance sufficed to show unmistakably that it was not natural clouds, such as an inexperienced eye would pronounce it, but it was the fine dry powder of the parched prairie raised by the passage of multitudinous feet.

From the distance and through the haze nothing at all could be discovered of those who were “kicking up the dust.” The fact that it was very near that quarter from which they expected the coming of the emigrant party, and that it was at the very time they were looking for their coming, argued strongly for their being their friends. But neither Harling nor Lancaster were quite satisfied on this point.

Reining their horses down to a slow walk, they gazed long and fixedly in the direction of the tumult, and finally the sharp-scented trapper exclaimed:

“They ain’t white men; they’re Injins!”

“How do you know that?” inquired Fred.

“I can smell ’em!”

This, however, was an attempt to be facetious, and the hunter condescended to give his reasons for holding such strong suspicions.

“You see there is too much dust, in the first place, for a party of white folks.”

“You know the prairie looks as if it hadn’t rained for six months, and we have left a trail behind us, something like a Mississippi steamer leaves, when she throws every thing she has on board into her furnaces, for the sake of beating her rival. Just look behind you and see what a cloud you have left in the air.”

“Yes; I know,” returned Lancaster, without turning his head. “And that’s just the reason for them ’ere thieves off yonder being redskins. We’ve had our horses in a gallop, and their hoofs have kicked up this dust, an’ that’s just what has been done over yonder. You have heard, I suppose, that emigrant parties aint apt to go ’cross the plains on a full canter, you’ve larn’t that I ’spose, haint you?”

“I’ve learnt it now if I didn’t know it before,” laughed Fred. “You know there may rise occasions for them to put themselves at their highest speed, as when a party of Indians come screaming down upon them.”

Lancaster shook his head.

“You’re mistook there, my friend; you’re mistook there. I’ve guided many a party through the Rockies and across the plains, and some of ’em from St. Louis and Independence, and I never yet seed that thing done. ’Cause why, it would be all tom-foolery, with their loaded wagons, and jaded horses and sleepy oxen; such a thing would be impossible—yes, sir, impossible, even if all the Injins were on foot. You see, don’t you?”

Wainwright could not deny the force of what the hunter said, and much against his will he was led to believe that a party of hostile Indians were rapidly nearing them. This, while it gave the hunter no uneasiness as regarded themselves, looked as though the emigrant train had gotten into trouble, and on that account the three horsemen were more apprehensive than they would have been under ordinary circumstances.

In the mean time the agents in this cloud of dust were rapidly nearing the party of hunters, who, with their horses upon a slow walk, were attentively watching for some further evidence of the identity of their enemies.

“Hark!” admonished Harling, raising his hand with a gesture of silence.

All bent their heads and listened. Faintly through the turmoil and confusion, they caught the sound of shouting, as though the parties were calling to each other; at the same time a faint rumble or trembling was heard which showed that numerous animals were tramping the prairie.

“Doesn’t it look as though the emigrants were in trouble?” asked Fred, with an expression of familiar alarm. “I do hope they haven’t been attacked.”

“It is a party of Injins driving a lot of animals,” said Harling. “They have stampeded them, and if you listen very hard you can hear the tramp of their feet.”

“But the shouting?”

“All as matter of course. They have got the animals on a full run, and are shouting and yelling at them to keep them going. Hark! How much plainer you can hear ’em?”

Such was the case; the fearful whooping of the excited redskins coming to their ears with great distinctness. Suddenly Lancaster’s face brightened.

“I understand now what it all means. A lot of thieves have stampeded a drove of sheep and have ’em on the full run so as to get them as far away from re-capture as soon as possible.”

“They must be Apaches, then,” remarked Fred.

“No, sir,” and the hunter pressing his lips, “them’s _Comanches_.”

“What are they doing as far up as this?”

Lancaster looked at the interlocutor in surprise, and then repeated.

“As far up as this! Ten years ago I seed a party of over twenty Comanches along the Yellowstone, a thousand miles from here, and I’ve seen hundreds of ’em ’atween here and there.”

“I thought they rarely came so far north. I have never seen any of them till yesterday.”

The hunter laughed as he answered.

“There’s no need of your taking the trouble to tell us that; _I_ never ’sposed you have. True, the most of ’em sticks down in New Mexico, Texas and around there, but they often come further north, just to get a chance to stretch their limbs.”

“But how can you tell them from the Apaches who resemble them so closely?”

“That is rather a nice point, I’ll own,” said Lancaster, “with some professional points, but the fact is, that since we’ve been sitting on our horses, riding and listening, I’ve heard a scream given by one of the dogs, that I’ve heard afore and that always came from the throat of a full blooded Comanche.”

“It strikes me that if such is the case, the best thing we can do is to get out of this region as rapidly as possible.”

This was really the most sensible remark Fred Wainwright had made for some time; and feeling it to be such, he was not a little confused to see that it attracted scarcely any attention. Finally, Lancaster, who was still looking toward the tumultuous crowd which was passing toward them, remarked,

“They’re going to pass to the north of us, between us and the Point.”

“But they’ll see us.”

“What if they do?”

“Why we shall have a chase and all for nothing too, and be kept away the whole day from joining the party who are looking as anxiously for us.”

“See here, youngster,” said the trapper, turning toward their younger companion. “You’re talking about something that you don’t know nothing about. These Comanches are stealing them sheep, and they want to get along with them as fast as they can, if not faster; they have got no time to stop and fight, no matter how bad they want to.”

“You’ve guessed right, for once in your life,” remarked Harling, “you can see that the drove have turned to the north, and when they pass us there will be a good half mile between the Comanches and us.”

Lancaster looked inexpressible things and kept silence.

The remark of the hunter, or rather his prediction came true. In a few minutes, through the dust and smoke, they could distinguish the forms of Indians mounted on their mustangs, dashing hither and thither in the most rapid evolutions, while the affrighted sheep huddled together, or piled pell mell in their frantic attempts to make faster time. The Comanches displayed the most extraordinary skill in horsemanship, darting hither and thither, sometimes under their horse’s belly, then over his neck, and in every conceivable position.

The Indians discovered the hunters at the same instant that the latter saw them; but they did not give them the least heed. They were too numerous to fear any thing from the white men, and they knew they had too much shrewdness to disturb them; and so the mortal enemies passed within a comparatively slight distance of each other, with no other evidence of recognition than a mutual scowl of hate.

The hunters waited until a portion of the thick dust had settled, when they resumed their march for the point where they expected to meet the approaching emigrant party.