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Some are for shooting him on the spot, others propose hanging, while only a few of the more humane advocate taking him on to the settlements and there giving him a trial. He will have to die anyhow that is pretty sure; for not only as a Mexican is he their enemy, but now doubly so from being found in league with their most detested foes, the Tenawa Comanches.
It was to desist from their threatening strife and extinguish the flames that still flared up over the waggons. He who spoke was the one with the red cross upon his breast, its bars of bright vermilion gleaming like fire against the sombre background of his skin. He was the chief of the Tenawa Comanches the Horned Lizard as Wilder had justly conjectured.
Between them and the settlers there is the same earnestness of purpose, though stimulated by resentment altogether different. The latter only think of rescuing their dear ones, while the former are stirred by soldier pride and the instinctive antagonism which a Texan Ranger feels for a Tenawa.
Now, before it is a plentiful future a time of feasting and revelry, such as rarely occurs to a robber band, whether amidst the forest-clad mountains of Italy, or on the treeless steppes of America. The Tenawa chief is both joyous and triumphant. So, too, his second in command, whose skin, with the paint cleansed from it, would show nearly white.
The time is two weeks subsequent to the attack on Hamersley's train; and, judging by the spectacle now presented, we may conclude that the Tenawa chief has not spent the interval in idleness. Nearly three hundred miles lie between the place where the caravan was destroyed and the site of the plundered settlement, whose spoils are now seen in the possession of the savages.
His next interrogatory, quickly put, is to get satisfied on this head. "You reached the Tenawa town?" "We did, senor coronel." "Pedrillo carried a message to the Horned Lizard, with a letter for Barbato. You know that, I suppose?" "He told me so." "Well, you saw him deliver the letter to Barbato?" "He did not deliver it to Barbato." "To the chief, then?" "To neither, your Excellency.
He has escaped the spears, arrows, and tomahawks of the Tenawa savages to fall a victim to a destroyer, stealthy, subtle, unseen. And is the noble Texan guide, ranger, and hunter thus sadly to succumb? No. Fate has not decreed his death by such insidious means. A circumstance, apparently accidental, steps in to save him.
He's one of my muleteers I'd sent as a messenger to the Tenawa town. He returns to tell me there's no Horned Lizard in existence, and only a remnant of his tribe. Himself, with the best of his braves, has gone to the happy hunting grounds; not voluntarily, but sent thither by a party of Tejanos who fell foul of them on a foray." "That's a strange tale," rejoins Roblez, adding, "And Barbato?"
The alarm thus started will easily be fostered into a stampede, and at the onslaught of the savages the lancers will rush to their horses and ride off without offering resistance. In the sauve qui peut none of them will give a thought to the two prisoners lying tied under the tree. These are to be left behind to the tender mercies of the Tenawa chief.
Ef I only hed my rifle hyar durn the luck hevin' to desart that gun I ked show you nine nicks on her timmer as stan' for nine Tenawa Kimanch. Ef't be them, we've got to keep well to the southart. Thar range lays most in the Canadyen, or round the head o' Big Wichitu, an' they mout cross a corner o' the Staked Plain on thar way home.
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