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Updated: June 24, 2025
Away to the northwest, perhaps a dozen miles, in alternate puffs, another and narrower smoke column was rising Sioux signals, as they knew at once and right down here before their eyes, midway between the shining river and the foot of the northward slope, perhaps two thousand yards out a little more than a mile was coming toward them a four-horse wagon, its white top a wreck, its struggling team lashed by the whip of the driver and the quirts of half a dozen dusky outriders, while others still circled and shouted and urged them on, while afar back on the east bank of the stream other riders could be seen darting about in keen excitement.
These Soledad girls, as I call them, each had a sunburst of yellow hair, were well bronzed by the Mexican sun, and were sturdy little bodies. They were dressed in short skirts, with leggings, topped with Tam o' Shanters, while about their waists were cartridge-belts, with delicate knives and revolvers attached, and with spurs and quirts as accessories.
They raced at top speed into the gulch, caring nothing for the clatter of hoofs, knowing that there could be no escape for the mounted Redskins up the steep hillsides. Midway along the defile, where it widened beyond a projecting spur of cliff, they saw the Indians driving the stolen herd of horses before them, urging them with yells and stinging quirts.
Then sounded an "All ready!" from cowboy Buck, first in motion, a straining of leather, a swish of quirts, a grunting of ponies as the spurs dug into their flanks, a rush of leaping feet, a wild medley of yells, and westward across the prairie, beneath the stars, there passed a swiftly moving black shadow that grew momentarily lighter, and back from which came a patter, patter, patter, that grew softer and softer; until at last over the old saloon and its companion store fell silence absolute.
There was instantaneous lashing of quirts, a sudden scurry and rush, and like one great herd of elk smitten with sudden panic, away surged and sped the entire throng, Thunder Hawk's stampeded pony bearing him irresistibly away with the rest.
Everything was precisely as he remembered it: the simple, old-fashioned furniture, the crossed quirts over the high wooden mantel, his mother's rocking-chair ... that was the final touch; he sat down on the worn door-log and put his face in his hands. For now the gaping chasm of the years was quite closed and he was a boy again.
"Hold tight, tight!" he shouted again, launching a kick at a snorting animal that reared back against Margaret's saddle. If she should lose her courage and fall now, under those hoofs He struck out again and again, kicking right and left with all his might. Already the negligent drivers had galloped into the cut, and their long quirts were whistling over the heads of the herd.
Slickers waved, quirts slapped against leather, six-shooters flashed, but still the cattle, heads lowered, advanced with slow and sullen persistence that would not be stemmed. If we held our ground, they divided around us. Step by step we were forced to give way the thin line of nervously plunging horses sprayed before the dense mass of the cattle.
Now and then one would stay on the wild animal's back longer than had any of his friends, not falling when the bronco leaped up in the air and came down with his legs as stiff as those of an old fashioned piano. "Ki-yi! Yippi-i-yip!" yelled the cowboys, as they dashed about on the bucking bronco, swinging their hats or their quirts, which are short-handled whips, in the air over their heads.
If we refused, they stuck sharp-pointed knives into us, and struck us with their quirts; though, after Anastacio made the fuss, they didn't strike Juanita any more. "The night you rescued us was the first time they hadn't put a guard out, since we were captured.
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