apapiu/simple_text_files · Datasets at Hugging Face

"Carrambo!" exclaimed the Colonel to his subordinate, when, after looking to the stowage of the plunder, the two men sat together in a well-furnished apartment of the hacienda, with a table, decanters, and glasses between them. "It's been a long, tedious tramp, hasn't it? Well, we've not wasted our time, nor had our toil for nothing. Come, teniente, fill your glass again, and let us drink to our commercial adventure. Here's that in the disposal of our goods we may be as successful as in their purchase!"

Right merrily the lieutenant refilled his glass, and responded to the toast of his superior officer.

"I suspect, Roblez," continued the Colonel, "that you have been all the while wondering how I came to know about this caravan whose spoil is to enrich us -- its route -- the exact time of its arrival, the strength of its defenders -- everything? You think our friend the Horned Lizard gave me all this information."

"No, I don't; since that could not well be. How was Horned Lizard to know himself -- that is, in time to have sent word to you? In truth, mio Coronel, I am, as you say, in a quandary about all that. I cannot even guess at the explanation."

"This would give it to you, if you could read; but I know you cannot, mio teniente; your education has been sadly neglected. Never mind, I shall read it for you."

As the colonel was speaking he had taken from the drawer of a cabinet that stood close by a sheet of paper folded in the form of a letter. It was one, though it bore no postmark. For all that, it looked as if it had travelled far -- perchance carried by hand. It had in truth come all the way across the prairies. Its superscription was: --

"El Coronel Miranda, Commandante del Distrito Militario de Albuquerque, Nuevo Mexico."

Its contents, also in Spanish, translated read thus: --

"My dear Colonel Miranda, -- I am about to carry out the promise made to you at our parting. I have my mercantile enterprise in a forward state of readiness for a start over the plains. My caravan will not be a large one, about six or seven waggons with less than a score of men; but the goods I take are valuable in an inverse ratio to their bulk -- designed for the 'ricos' of your country. I intend taking departure from the frontier town of Van Buren, in the State of Arkansas, and shall go by a new route lately discovered by one of our prairie traders, that leads part way along the Canadian river, by you called 'Rio de la Canada,' and skirting the great plain of the Llano Estacado at its upper end. This southern route makes us more independent of the season, so that I shall be able to travel in the fall. If nothing occur to delay me in the route, I shall reach New Mexico about the middle of November, when I anticipate renewing those relations of a pleasant friendship in which you have been all the giver and I all the receiver.

"I send this by one of the spring caravans starting from Independence for Santa Fe, in the hope that it will safely reach you.

"I subscribe myself, dear Colonel Miranda, --

"Your grateful friend, --

"Francis Hamersley."

"Well, teniente," said his Colonel, as he refolded the far-fetched epistle, and returned it to the drawer, "do you comprehend matters any clearer now?"

"Clear as the sun that shines over the Llano Estacado," was the reply of the lieutenant, whose admiration for the executive qualities of his superior officer, along with the bumpers he had imbibed, had now exalted his fancy to a poetical elevation. "Carrai-i! Esta un golpe magnifico! (It's a splendid stroke!) Worthy of Manuel Armilo himself. Or even the great Santa Anna!"

"A still greater stroke than you think it, for it is double -- two birds killed with the same stone. Let us again drink to it!"

The glasses were once more filled, and once more did the associated bandits toast the nefarious enterprise they had so successfully accomplished.

Then Roblez rose to go to the cuartel or barracks, where he had his place of sleeping and abode, bidding buena noche to his colonel.

The latter also bethought him of bed, and, taking a lamp from the table, commenced moving towards his cuarto de camara.

On coming opposite a picture suspended against the sala wall -- the portrait of a beautiful girl -- he stopped in front, for a moment gazed upon it, and then into a mirror that stood close by.

As if there was something in the glass that reflected its shadow into his very soul, the expression of exultant triumph, so lately depicted upon his face, was all at once swept from it, giving place to a look of blank bitterness.

"One is gone," he said, in a half-muttered soliloquy; "one part of the stain wiped out -- thanks to the Holy Virgin for that. But the other; and she -- where, where?"

And with these words he staggered on towards his chamber.

Chapter Twenty One.

Struggling Among The Sages.

It is the fourth day after forsaking the couch among the shin oaks, and the two fugitives are still travelling upon the Llano Estacado. They have made little more than sixty miles to the south-eastward, and have not yet struck any of the streams leading out to the lower level of the Texan plain.

Their progress has been slow; for the wounded man, instead of recovering strength, has grown feebler. His steps are now unequal and tottering. In addition to the loss of blood, something else has aided to disable him -- the fierce cravings of hunger and the yet more insufferable agony of thirst.

His companion is similarly afflicted; if not in so great a degree, enough to make him also stagger in his steps. Neither has had any water since the last drop drank amid the waggons, before commencing the fight; and since then a fervent sun shining down upon them, with no food save crickets caught in the plain, an occasional horned frog, and some fruit of the opuntia cactus -- the last obtained sparingly.

Hunger has made havoc with both, sad and quick. Already at the end of the fourth day their forms are wasted. They are more like spectres than men.

And the scene around them is in keeping. The plain, far as the eye can reach, is covered with artemisia, whose hoary foliage, in close contact at the tops, displays a continuation of surface like a vast winding-sheet spread over the world.

Across this fall the shadows of the two men, proportioned to their respective heights. That of the ex-Ranger extends nearly a mile before him; for the sun is low down, and they have its beams upon their backs.

They are facing eastward, in the hope of being able to reach the brow of the Llano where it abuts on the Texan prairies; though in the heart of one of them this hope is nearly dead. Frank Hamersley has but slight hopes that he will ever again see the homes of civilisation, or set foot upon its frontier. Even the ci-devant Ranger inclines to a similar way of thinking.

Not far off are other animated beings that seem to rejoice. The shadows of the two men are not the only ones that move over the sunlit face of the artemisia. There, too, are outlined the wings of birds -- large birds with sable plumage and red naked necks, whose species both know well. They are zopilotes -- the vultures of Mexico.

A score of such shadows are flitting over the sage -- a score of the birds are wheeling in the air above.

It is a sight to pain the traveller, even when seen at a distance. Over his own head it may well inspire him with fear. He cannot fail to read in it a forecast of his own fate.

The birds are following the two men, as they would a wounded buffalo or stricken deer. They soar and circle above them, at times swooping portentously near. They do not believe them to be spectres. Wasted as their flesh may be, there will still be a banquet upon their bones.

Now and then Walt Wilder casts a glance up towards them. He is anxious, though he takes care to hide his anxiety from his comrade. He curses the foul creatures, not in speech -- only in heart, and silently.

For a time the wearied wayfarers keep on without exchanging a word. Hitherto consolation has come from the side of the ex-Ranger; but he seems to have spent his last effort, and is himself now despairing.

In Hamersley's heart hope has been gradually dying out, as his strength gets further exhausted. At length the latter gives way, the former at the same time.

"No farther, Walt!" he exclaims, coming to a stop. "I can't go a step further. There is a fire in my throat that chokes me; something grips me within. It is dragging me to the ground."

The hunter stops too. He makes no attempt to urge his comrade on. He perceives it would be idle.

"Go on yourself," Hamersley adds, gasping out the words. "You have yet strength left, and may reach water. I cannot, but I can die, I'm not afraid to die. Leave me, Walt; leave me!"

"Niver!" is the response, in a hoarse, husky voice, but firm, as if it came from a speaking-trumpet.

"You will; you must. Why should two lives be sacrificed for one? Yours may still be saved. Take the gun along with you. You may find something. Go, comrade -- friend -- go!"

Again the same response, in a similar tone.

"I sayed, when we were in the fight," adds the hunter, "an' aterwards, when gallupin' through the smoke, that livin' or dyin' we'd got to stick thegither. Didn't I say that, Frank Hamersley? I repeat it now. Ef you go unner hyar in the middle o' this sage-brush, Walt Wilder air goin' to wrap his karkiss in a corner o' the same windin' sheet. There ain't much strength remainin' in my arms now, but enuf, I reck'n, to keep them buzzarts off for a good spell yit. They don't pick our bones till I've thinned thar count anyhow. Ef we air to be rubbed out, it'll be by the chokin' o' thirst, and not the gripin' o' hunger. What durned fools we've been, not to a-thinked o' 't afore! but who'd iver think o' eatin' turkey buzzart? Wall, it's die dog or swaller the hatchet; so onpalatable as thar flesh may be, hyar goes to make a meal o' it!"

While speaking, he has carried the gun to his shoulder.

Simultaneous with his last words comes the crack, quickly followed by the descent of a zopilote among the sages.

"Now, Frank," he says, stooping to pick up the dead bird, while the scared flock flies farther away, "let's light a bit o' a fire, an' cook it. Thar's plenty o' sage for the stuffin', an' its own flavour'll do for seasonin' 'stead o' inyuns. I reck'n we kin git some o' it down, by holdin' our noses; an' at all events, it'll keep us alive a leetle longer. Wagh, ef we only hed water!"