Part 9 (1/2)
Under the yellow light the lake glistens as if it was molten gold, while the rebound upwards from the heavy drops shows something like a golden spray hanging all over it. On beyond the out-going stream, late but a tiny rivulet, has changed to a foaming torrent, madly breaking its way across the plain; while the in-going rill from the _messas_ summit has become a series of cascades and cataracts.
The Indians, fearing a stampede by their horses, draw them in from their picket-pins, hobble, and make them fast round the wheels of the wagons, but they are still more solicitous about the fine _caballada_ captured and sent away; for nearly every one of these, with all the mules, has a pack saddle on its back with the distributed dry goods, and other desirable articles not taken up the _messa_. In short, if that pack drove be lost, they may not have much to reward them for the season's raid. They might have sent the wagons along, but aware of the use to which these are often put by the palefaces, as sleeping-tents, are noting the approach of the storm, and determine to utilise them in similar fas.h.i.+on. That night at least they would need them, and it might be many more.
So, as the rain falls, lightning flashes, and thunder rolls, there is a close-packed crowd under the tilt of each, with the big tent full to its entrance-flap; and still there is not s.p.a.ce enough to s.h.i.+eld all from that torrent of the sky, a large number retreating under ledges of the cliffs that overhang near by.
The miners are all under shelter; they, too, sure of the approaching storm, having worked hard during the later hours of the day. The _messa_ gave them material for wall and roof. Posts from the indigenous trees with scantling poles cut from saplings of many kinds, and a thatch of _cycas_ and other gra.s.slike plants, which abounded on the summit.
Men accustomed as they to handling ropes and gearing, were not long in running up a house sufficient for shelter, and now every such domicile is filled to its door-jambs; men, women, and children mingled together, some standing, some seated on the bundles of goods that, but for their being inside, would have been lost. They had thought of that too.
Up to a certain hour the people of quality are all inside one tent, which shows bright from a light burning inside it: their conversation is, of course, about the circ.u.mstances which surround them. Who, then, could talk of any other? Don Estevan believes that the killing of the Rattlesnake may be a disadvantage to them rather than otherwise, making the vengeance of his followers more implacable than at least it should do. But he has yet another reason for so believing. In his own military expeditions he had become acquainted with El Cascabel's second in command, a sub-chief, equalling the others in hostility to the whites, while far excelling him in ability.
But it is too soon yet to discuss such chances. Rest was the one thing needed; and at the usual hour for retiring, all, save those detailed for picket-guard, seek repose.
Just as on the previous night the less experienced stand the first watches of the night, keeping the rain off with waterproof _serapes_; only at intervals need they look down, and then, unlike as on the night before, everything is seen as under a meridian sun, for it is while the lightning gleams they make their intermittent examination of the gorge path, cascading stream, trees, and rocks illuminated by it as by a thousand torches; only towards morning do their blazes become less frequent, gradually dying out as the rain ceases to fall. Henry Tresillian is again on watch duty, having insisted upon it, notwithstanding the opposition made by the others of his party. But he has a reason they do not understand--indeed, he has not communicated it to them; during the earlier hours of the night he fancied having observed a dark object far off on the plain, seemingly in the shape of a horse; but returning several times to look, afterwards he could not see it again. Now, on the post midnight watch, at each blaze he runs his eye around the spot where he fancied the dark object to have been, only in the very last one to see it again, and make sure it was a horse; but his ears tell him more than his eyes, for in the dark spell succeeding the silence of the elements restored he several times hears a neigh, which he recognises as that of his own horse, Crusader.
And when the day at length dawns he sees the n.o.ble animal itself only a short distance beyond the lower end of the lake, with head upraised and muzzle pointed up the gorge, as though in a morning salute to himself,
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
AN UNLOOKED-FOR ENEMY.
A thrill of delight sweeps through the heart of the English youth at beholding Crusader in this att.i.tude, as if the horse said, ”You see, I've not forsaken you.” Satisfaction also to think the animal capable of making its own way, and finding sustenance in those wilds; for should it ever be their fate to escape from that mountain, there might be a hope of horse and master coming together again. But there is fear commingled with these feelings, this causing the eyes of Henry Tresillian to turn with quick glance towards the left, where a small portion of the camp of the Indians is visible outside the flanking battlements of rock; every moment he expects to see issue from it a band of dusky hors.e.m.e.n in start for a new pursuit of his favourite.
Crusader seems to have some antic.i.p.ation of the same; he stands restlessly, now glancing up the chine, anon at the corralled wagons with hundreds of horses around them. These he regards suspiciously, being the same with which he had already declined to a.s.sociate; perhaps he may be wondering where are the other horses, his companions of the caravan?
Whether or no, he hesitates to approach nearer to the old camping-ground, steadfastly keeping his place. Where he stands he is so nigh his former master that the latter might without any difficulty make himself heard, and at first the English youth had it on the tip of his tongue to call out a friendly greeting, but quick reflection showed him its imprudence. The very worst thing he could do for the horse's sake.
Crusader would be sure to recognise his voice and respond with a neigh, which would awake a chorus of yells in the Coyoteros' camp, and at once set the savages on the alert.
For the last half-hour or more the black horse had been quiet, and there were several reasons against his being seen. He was upon the opposite, or western edge of the stream, which had a fringing of reeds and bushes, broken in places, but here and there continuous for yards, and behind one of these clumps he had come to a stand; even in bright day, as it now nearly is, he would there be invisible to the occupants of the captured camp.
But if only to water their horses, the Indians will soon be das.h.i.+ng down to the lake, and then all chance of his remaining longer un.o.bserved will be at an end.
With gaze more riveted on the horse than ever, for there is something strange in his behaviour, Henry Tresillian watches him with wondering eyes, his heart audibly pulsating. What if they should again get him in a ring, and this time display more adroitness in hurling their laryettes? Crusader might not be so clever on every occasion.
While thus speculating on the result, a noise reaches the ears of the English youth, as also of others on vidette post, which causes an instant and sudden turning of their eyes in the opposite direction.
Many voices, indeed, all loud and all in excited tone. Voices of men, shrieks of women, and cries of terrified children, all coming from one place, their new camp by the spring.
The videttes stay not on their post an instant longer, but forsaking it, rush towards _ojo de agua_. Sounds inexplicable, mysterious! What can be causing them? The only suggestion attempted is, that the Indians after all may have contrived to ascend the _messa_ by some secret path known only to themselves, and are in the act of attacking from the rear.
What other enemy could cause such a scare? Every voice in the miners'
party is seemingly convulsed with affright.
The young Englishman dashes on ahead, tearing through branches, and bounding over trunks of prostrate trees. Vicente, who had brought the watch with him, is close behind, though he has not such stimulus to haste, for amidst the _fracas_ of noises, Henry Tresillian hears a sweet voice calling out his own name in a tone of appeal.
Not till they come to the very edge of the glade do they discover the cause of all these wild demonstrations, though something seen an instant or two earlier leads Vicente to conjecture it. Men, but chiefly boys and girls, standing on the branches of trees high as they can climb, as though there to behold some pa.s.sing spectacle.
”_El orso_!--the grizzly!”
”It must be that,” says Vicente, pressing on. And so it proves. As the videttes so mysteriously summoned in see on getting to the nearer end of the glade which surrounds the spring, at its farther one are two gigantic animals, one a quadruped, the other to all appearances a biped.