The Red Mustang

"The ranch and everybody in it! If father is there he might take them for friendly Indians until it would be too late. He isn't likely to be there. Men all gone! Mother is there! Vic is there!"

Cal's thoughts took terrible shapes as he galloped onward, borrowing horrors from all he had ever heard of the deeds of pitiless savages. More than once a fierce kind of shout burst from him, but he had no need for urging Dick. The red mustang's racing-blood was up, as if he knew that he were riding a great match against danger and death. He responded to his master with a short, excited whinny, and seemed to lengthen the splendid stride that swept the miles away. He had been set free to run his best and wildest, with only a light weight to carry, and the distance vanished behind him.

Cal had ridden Dick more than once when there were running deer to catch, and had thought him a miracle of speed, but now there were moments when he almost found fault with him for going slowly. That, too, with the warm wind whistling past him, and his own best horsemanship called for to keep the saddle. He guided Dick a little with reference to burrows and ant-hills. He knew that there were no ravines worth mentioning. He even kept a lookout for possible Indians between him and the northern horizon.

"I'll charge through them if I do see any," he said to Dick.

His face had undergone a change for the time, and was hardly boyish, it was so full of desperate determination and awful anxiety. He was riding for the safety of his home – of his father, mother, sister. At last before him arose a long, gentle roll of prairie that he seemed to know.

"Mother!" burst from him, as Dick sprang up the slope, and at the crest of it the good horse was reined in.

"Santa Lucia! The ranch! All right yet, and not an Indian to be seen. Hurrah for Dick!"

He deserved it, although he did not look is if he had been specially exerting himself. There was hardly a fleck of perspiration upon his glossy coat, and he drew only two or three long breaths, not so much because he needed them, perhaps, as that he also was relieved at finding everything serene about the ranch.

It was, in fact, a very picture of peace that lazy summer morning. The stout stockade, containing fully two acres of ground around the spring and the buildings, seemed almost deserted, except for a few cows, some dogs, and a couple of tethered horses. The house itself, of one story, built of large blocks of sunburned "adobe," made three sides of a square, the main entrance being through a gateway in the palisades and covered veranda that guarded the fourth side. Each face was over fifty feet long, and the outer windows were mere slips. The Spanish Mexicans who built Santa Lucia, years and years ago, had planned it for a pretty strong fort as well as dwelling, and Cal Evans felt very kindly towards them at the present moment.

The gate of the stockade was wide open, unguarded, and he dashed through it and up to the house in a manner which attracted attention. The sound of a piano ceased at once, and a dignified elderly lady, who came out to the veranda, was quickly joined by a younger and slighter form.

"Cal," exclaimed the latter, "has anything happened to father?"

"No, Vic, nothing much has happened – not yet – "

"Cal, something has happened! What is it?" said the old lady, with a quick flush of anxiety.

"I must out with it. The Apaches have scooped the lower drove, every horse. They came for the upper drove, but Sam and I got them into the timber – "

"Was he hurt?" asked Mrs. Evans.

"No, mother, but he isn't safe yet – " and Cal went on to give a rapid account of all he knew.

Sam Herrick himself could hardly have shown better nerve than did Cal's mother. She grew calm and steady-eyed as she listened, but Victoria's pretty face paled and reddened again and again, for she was hardly two years older than her brother.

"Oh, if only father were here!" she said.

"Where's he gone?" asked Cal.

"Out on the range," replied his mother. "He and all of them will come in at the first sign of danger. Everybody knew that the Indians were dissatisfied, but I didn't dream of their coming this way."

"They wanted horses, mother, and they may try and strike the ranch," said Cal.

"I think not," she said, decidedly, "but you must carry the news to Fort Craig."

"And leave you and Vic here? Never!"

"You must not pause one minute. Not even to eat. Victoria and I and the servants can bar the stockade and the house, but no Indians will come. If there is really any danger, the sooner the cavalry get here the better. Do you think you've tired Dick?"

"No, mother, but it seems as if I'd rather die than leave you here alone."

"Ride for our safety, my son. Ride steadily. It's a long push for any horse, and Dick must last till you get there."

"Yes, mother," said Cal, "but he can do it."

"Leave your rifle," she added. "You'll not need it, and it's an extra weight."

She did not let him forget to water the red mustang, and while Dick was drinking she packed a small haversack with cold meat and bread for Cal's use on the road.

He was ready to mount.

"Oh, mother, I want to stay and fight for you and Vic – "

"Bring the cavalry! Go!" she said, and it seemed to cost her something to say it.

He hardly knew, after he was in the saddle, in what words he put his good-bye. He saw two faces that watched him as Dick sprang through the gate. It seemed almost as if he had seen them for the last time, and then he thought, again, that perhaps the best hope for Santa Lucia and all in it had been confided to the swift feet of the red mustang.

Chapter III.

THE BAND OF KAH-GO-MISH

New Mexico is a wonderful country. It is full of places that are worth going to see, while some of its other places are well worth keeping away from. Down through the territory, east of the middle, runs north and south the main range of the Rocky Mountains. Among them rise the Picos and the Canadian and several other rivers that run away to the south and east. Westerly from the main range, with marvellous valleys between, are the Organ Mountains, made to show what strange shapes vast masses of rock can be broken into. Farther westward is the great valley of the Rio Grande and beyond this arise the Sierra Madre and the Sierra San Juan. It is all a wonderful region, with great plains as well as mountain ranges, and here and there are found remarkable ruins of ancient architecture and every way as remarkable remnants of ancient people. Some of the wide levels are mere deserts of sand and gravel – hot, barren, terrible – but others are rich with pasturage for horses and cattle, as they once were only for innumerable bisons, deer, and antelopes.

The Spanish-Mexican hidalgo who had selected Santa Lucia had shown excellent judgment, although even in that day he probably had more or less trouble with his red neighbors. The present owners and occupants of the ranch had had none at all until the very hour when Sam Herrick found the prairie around him swarming with them.

As for Sam, he had now no suspicion how near he came to again meeting the very Apaches who had chased him and Cal and who were now hurrying to rejoin their band. They missed Sam and they brought news back with them which seemed to receive the approval of the very dignified warrior who had directed in the capture of the horses. He was a proud-looking commander now, as he sat upon one of Colonel Evans's best horses to listen to their report.

"Ugh!" he remarked. "Kah-go-mish is a great chief. Get ranch first. Then go for horses in timber."

There was pride in every tone and movement of Kah-go-mish, for he had performed a great exploit, and he and his band were no longer in poverty. There were many signs, however, that they had not been prosperous upon the Reservation, although the chief still wore the very high silk hat which had there been given him. He had tied a green veil around it to set off its beauty and his own. His only other garments were the well-worn buckskin leggings which covered him from the waist to the knee, and a pair of long red stockings through which he had thrust his arms to the shoulder. Openings in the soles let out the hands, with which he gesticulated in explanation of orders which were promptly obeyed.

About thirty warriors, now well mounted and all pretty well armed, whirled away northerly, with Kah-go-mish at their head, and their purpose did not require any explanation.

Half as many more braves and all the squaws, boys, and girls proceeded to complete the beef business. They did it with great rapidity and dexterity, and then they, with the horses, dogs, and children, trailed away in a caravan that was headed almost due south. It was a very picturesque caravan all the time, but it looked more so than ever when it halted, after a while, on the bank of Slater's Branch.

Some very good people had been interested in the reservation set apart for those Apaches, and had gathered contributions of civilized clothing for them. It had not been in rebellion against anything of that sort that Kah-go-mish and his people had run away, for the miscellaneous goods from away Down East helped the picture at Slater's Branch amazingly. The hat and stocking legs had helped the appearance of the chief himself, but other things had done more for a fat and very dark lady whom he had addressed as Wah-wah-o-be. The many-ribboned straw bonnet upon the head of the severe-faced wife of Kah-go-mish was fine. So was the blue calico dress with the red flannel skirt over it, and the pony she rode seemed to be afraid of the whole outfit. Near her, upon two other ponies, sat a boy and girl. They were apparently younger, a little, than Cal and Victoria Evans. They were hardly as good-looking, in some respects, and were dressed differently. Among the charities at the Reservation had been a bale of second-hand trousers, of the style worn nowadays by boys, reaching to the knee. The young lady wore a pair of these, and with them a dress of which any Mescalero girl might have been vain. A piece of yard-wide red cotton, three yards long, had a hole in the middle for the head to pass through. When proper armholes were added and a belt of embroidered antelope skin confined the loose cloth at the waist, what more was needed by the bright-eyed daughter of Kah-go-mish?

The boy on the other pony – Well, he wore another pair of second-hand trousers. They had been planned for a man and were large in the waist, requiring a belt, but had been altered to the complete style by cutting them off just below the knee. The pony he rode was one of the nearly worn-out fellows that had travelled all the way across the mountains from the Reservation. He and Cal Evans had been within a few miles of each other that morning. Both were uncommonly vigorous young fellows, of whom their parents had a right to be proud, but it was not easy to discover many points of resemblance between them. There did not seem to be the least probability that they would ever be much thrown into each other's society; but then no young fellow of fourteen knows precisely who his future friends are to be, or where he is to meet them.

Chapter IV.

THE GARRISON OF SANTA LUCIA

Fully six miles from the threatened home of the Evans family there was a deep, round sink-hole, shaped like a funnel. Nobody knew exactly when or how it was made, but down at the weedy bottom of it lay the body of an Indian pony, and over that there leaned a very tall man.

Up at the margin of the sink-hole were four horses, and three of them had riders.

"Well, colonel, how does it pan out?" asked one of the mounted men.

"Either Cal or Sam Herrick did it. Hit him right between the eyes. 'Tisn't two hours since it was done. The critter rolled down here. Joaquin, you and Key ride for the ranch. Tell Mrs. Evans I'll scout a little and be right there."

"All right, colonel," shouted one of the horsemen.

"Si, señor," responded the other.

The first was a brawny, freckled old fellow, with nothing to mark him for notice but a jaunty sort of roll and swagger, even in the saddle. The second speaker was an American, of the race that fought with Hernando Cortes for the road to the City of Mexico. He may or may not have been a full-blooded Tlascalan, but there was a fierce, tigerish expression on his face as he glanced at the dead pony. His white teeth showed, also, in a way to indicate the state of his mind towards the tribe the pony's owner belonged to, but the words he uttered carried a surprise with them. Who would have thought that so sweet and musical a voice could come from such a thunder-cloud face?

Key and Joaquin galloped away, and Colonel Evans climbed up out of the sink-hole.

"Somebody coming," suddenly exclaimed the remaining horseman.

"Reckon it must be Sam."

"Looks like him, Bill," said the colonel. "Coming on the run."

"We'll know now!" and Bill's words came out in a harsh, rasping voice that matched exactly with his long, thin body and coarse yellow hair.

The colonel stood by his horse waiting for Sam. Nobody who saw him once was likely to forget him. His eyes and hair were like Cal's, but the likeness did not go much further. There was silver in his heavy beard and mustache, and his eyebrows were bushy, giving him a stern, and, just now, a threatening expression. More than that, Colonel Abe Evans, old Indian trader and ranch owner, stood six feet and seven inches, although he was so well proportioned that at a little distance he did not seem unusually large. As to his strength, his men may have exaggerated a little, now and then, but they declared that whenever a horse tired under him he would take turns and carry the horse, so as not to lose time. He hated to lose anything, they said, but most of all he hated to lose his temper.

There were signs that he was having some difficulty in keeping cool just now, but his voice was steady, as yet.

"Is that your work?" he asked, as Sam reined in and stared down at the dead pony in the sink-hole.

"Colorado!" exclaimed Sam. "That's where that 'Pache went to. Hit the pony, did I? 'Peared to go out of sight powerful sudden."

He paused for a moment, and he wiped his forehead, but there was a steely light beginning to dance in the eyes of Colonel Evans, and the cowboy continued: "No manner of use blinking it, colonel. The lower drove's gone. Took me by surprise. Reg'lar swarm. I reached the upper drove in time and stampeded it across Slater's Branch. Every hoof."

"Did they follow you?"

"Oh, yes, a gang of 'em, but Cal and I stood 'em off."

"Cal!" exclaimed his father, with a start and a shiver, but Sam went steadily on in a rapid sketch of the morning's adventures.

"Sam Herrick," said the colonel, "keep the gray you're on. It's your horse. I can read the whole thing like a book. Of course they wanted beef and horses, but they may go for the ranch. Come on!"

There was an angry shake, now, in the deep, ringing tones of his voice, and the veins in his forehead were swelling. He sprang to the saddle of the broad-chested, strong limbed thoroughbred held for him, and that seemed just the horse for the strongest man in southern New Mexico.

"Sam," said he, as they rode away, "what's your opinion?"

"Cal got there safe, long before the redskins could. We can do it, too, if they worked long enough over their beef. If we get there first, we can hold Saint Lucy against twice as many. But if we don't – "

Neither of those horsemen said another word after that. Sam knew no more than the rest did of what was actually going on at the ranch.

More than a little had been going on, and with quite remarkable results.

Hardly had Cal disappeared through the gateway of the stockade before the two in the veranda turned and looked wistfully at one another.

"Mother," said Victoria, "do you think there is really any danger?"

"Terrible danger, my dear," said Mrs. Evans, with a quiver in her firm lips.

"Then what made you send Cal away? Oh, mother!"

"We are as safe, almost, without him as with him, and the whole valley is in danger until the army officers are warned. They believe that everything is quiet."

"How I wish they were here! And father!"

"Victoria," exclaimed Mrs. Evans, with a face that grew very pale, "he went to look at the lower drove, the one that the savages have captured."

"Sam didn't see him, or Cal would have said so. Mother, you don't believe they killed him?"

There was a strange look in the resolute face of Mrs. Evans.

"Vic," she said, "I don't believe they have touched him. He's not the man to be caught. We must work, though, for they'll be here pretty soon. We must bar the gate, first, and any prowling Indian needn't be told that there are only women behind the stockade."

Vic's quick dash for the gate expressed her feelings fairly, but she put up the bars of the gate with more strength and steadiness than might have been expected of her. But for the reddish tint of her hair she would have looked even more like Cal than she did when she turned and said: "There, mother, that's done. Now, what?"

Mrs. Evans studied the gate for a moment.

"Vic," she said, "everybody must help. I think we can hold the ranch. Come with me."

In half a minute more they were standing in the courtyard of the adobe, explaining the terrors of the situation to a group of five startled and frightened women. Seven in all, they were the only garrison of Santa Lucia, and Kah-go-mish and his warriors were coming to surprise it. How long could they hold out?

Chapter V.

CAL AND THE CAVALRY AND THE RED MUSTANG

"Sixty miles to Fort Craig!"

That had been the mournful exclamation of Cal Evans, a little distance from Santa Lucia. Then he made a brief calculation, and added: "Dick has had ten miles of easy going and ten miles of running. Not many horses could stand sixty more. I believe he can, but I'll take care of him, as mother said. It's awful! I don't wonder some people want to kill all the Indians, right away. I do."

He had some lessons yet to learn about Indians, but now he reined in the red mustang to a steady-going gallop instead of the free gait that Dick was inclined to take.

An hour went by, and it was a trying hour to Cal Evans, crowded as his mind was with fears and with imaginations concerning what might be doing at Santa Lucia.

"Wasn't mother beautiful!" was one thought that came to him. "Vic, too, and they're brave enough, and they both know how to shoot, but what can they do against Indians?"

He felt that he was doing his duty. He was, at all events, obeying his mother. He was a boy who wished to be in two places, but his mind grew calmer with the regular beat of Dick's hoofs. A sharp appetite came, too, and put him in mind of his haversack. He ate as best he could, and the next stream of water he came to invited him to dismount and get some, and to let Dick do the same and rest a little. It was very hard work to stand still and eat cold meat and bread, and pat Dick and think about Santa Lucia.

After that the red mustang was pulled in for a breathing-spell at the end of every half-hour, or a little more, but every minute expended in that way seemed like an hour to Cal Evans.

Noon came and went, as the long miles went by. Groves, tree-lined sloughs, gangs of deer to the right and left, hardly attracted a glance from the sore-hearted young messenger. Mountain-tops, easterly, that had been cloudy in the morning, were showing more distinctly against the sky, when Cal at last pulled the red mustang suddenly in.

"A smoke!" he exclaimed. "It can't be Indians. No danger of their being away up here. I'll find out."

Courageously, but warily, he rode some distance nearer, and he was just about to dismount when a loud voice hailed him.

"Hullo! What are you scouting around for? What are you afraid of?"

"Hurrah!" shouted Cal, for the hitherto unseen horseman, who now came out from behind a clump of mesquit trees, wore the yellow-trimmed uniform of the United States cavalry.

Explanations followed fast, and were made more full in front of the camp-fire, where rations were cooking for a score or more of what Cal thought were the best-looking men he ever saw. That is, they were the very men he wanted to see, and the bronzed, gray-bearded captain in command of them was really a fine-looking veteran.

"So," he said, "my young friend, we ought to have set out a day earlier. Colonel Sumner had heard that a band had been seen near El Paso, days ago, and we were coming your way. Your father isn't the man to be taken by surprise. He can hold the ranch."

"Father isn't there, Captain Moore!" exclaimed Cal.

"I'll trust him to get there, then. That's a splendid fellow you're riding. What did you say? Twenty miles and more before you left Santa Lucia? Forty odd, since, to this place. Pretty near seventy miles. That's enough for him or you for one day."

It was in vain for Cal to plead the peril of his family. The cavalry had made a long push and must rest their horses. One tough fellow was given only time to eat before he was again mounted, on a spare horse fresher than the rest, with despatches for the commander at Fort Craig.

Dick was provided with ample rations, and so was his master; but Cal Evans needed all the cheerful encouragement of Captain Moore to keep his heart from sinking under his heavy forebodings concerning the fate of Santa Lucia.

The nearer the sun sank to the horizon the more strongly he felt that it was impossible for him to spend that night in the cavalry camp. He said so to Captain Moore, stoutly denying that his day of hard riding had wearied him.

"I know how you feel," said the kindly veteran at last. "There'll be a good moon, and you know the way. I'll let you have one of our led horses. You mustn't ride to death that red beauty of yours. We'll bring him on. Tell your father we shall start at sunrise, and that I've sent word to the fort."

Cal was sincerely grateful, but while a soldier was saddling for him a good-looking black, he went to say good-bye to Dick, praising and caressing him in a manner that brought from him whinny after whinny of good-will.

His master had not known how tired he was himself until he mounted the black – so stiff, so sore, so almost without any spring left in him; but he felt better the moment the horse began to move under him.

"Take your bearings by the north star," shouted Captain Moore. "Go easy and you'll get there. Then I think you'll want to go to bed."

Cal thanked him and cantered away. He was glad enough of the glorious moonlight and of the stars, especially the north star. He was carrying news of help found quicker than he had expected. What then? Would he find Santa Lucia as he had left it? Would it be besieged? How many Apaches might he not fall in with before getting there? He knew that they never rode around after dark, and that was something.

"If I don't get too tired and tumble off," he said to himself, "and if the black holds out, I'll get home before daylight, and I'll ride through to the gate if the Apaches are camped all around the ranch."

The black galloped steadily. He was a good horse, but he lacked the easy swing of the red mustang, and there was more weariness in riding him. He was allowed to rest, at intervals, and Cal tried hard not to ask too much of him.

"Captain Moore said about forty miles to the ranch," remarked the young rider to his horse, at last. "You must have done about half of them. You're doing well enough, but I never felt so tired in all my life. I'm going to make a good, hard push of about ten miles, if it's only to keep me from going to sleep."

The push was made and the black stood it well enough, but it grew harder and harder on Cal. At the end of it he knew that he could not be more than ten miles from the ranch, but he found that the black was disposed to walk. It might be unwise to urge him any more. At the same time every mile was probably bringing Cal and his news within more or less danger of Apache interruption. Oh, how he longed for a glimpse of the Santa Lucia stockade! Oh, how sleepy he was, and how hungry and how sick at heart!

As the black plodded onward he caught himself nodding heavily, and he recovered his senses in the middle of a half-waking dream in which he had seen the cavalry arriving and chasing away Indians.