Across Texas

His face was a study. His hair was long, and, like the beard that covered his face, plentifully sprinkled with gray. His small eyes were light in color, restless, bright, and twinkling; his nose large and Roman in form, and his voice a mellow bass.

The trapper was yet several rods distant when Lattin exclaimed in a surprised undertone:

“Why, that’s old Eph, as sure as I live!”

“So it is,” added Strubell; “I haven’t seen him for years.”

The hunter recognized the Texan at the same moment, and the movement of his heavy beard showed he was smiling, though it was impossible to see his mouth. He uttered a hearty salutation as he came forward, and grasped each hand in turn, being introduced by Strubell to Herbert, who noticed the searching look he fixed for a moment on his face.

“I’m glad to know you, younker,” he said, almost crushing his hand; “but I’m s’prised to meet you so soon after seeing another; I aint used to running agin boys in this part of the world; but things seem to be gettin’ endways the last few years, and I’ve made up my mind thar’s powerful little in the trappin’ bus’ness any longer.”

Eph Bozeman, as Strubell announced him, proved by the words just uttered that he had seen Nick Ribsam, and therefore must have news to impart. Since he had come directly over the trail of the horse thieves, the Texans had suspected the other fact before he made it known.

After the exchange of a few questions and answers, during which Bozeman stated that he was on his way to Austin to hunt up an old friend, who had been engaged for a number of years in buying and selling mustangs, Strubell explained the business that had brought him and his companions over the border into New Mexico.

“How far are we behind Rickard and the others?”

The trapper turned in his saddle and looked to the rear for a few seconds without speaking. His forehead was wrinkled with thought, but it did not take him long to answer the question.

“You are thirty-five miles or tharabouts from the Pecos, and Bell and Harman will cross the stream about noon, which is two hours off, so you may say thar is thirty miles atween you.”

“There wasn’t more than a dozen when we started,” was the remark of the disgusted Lattin, “so we have been losing ground for more than a week that we’ve been chasing ‘em.”

“Thar can’t be any doubt of that ‘cordin’ to your own words,” replied the trapper; “but if you keep on you’ll be up with ‘em by the end of two days.”

“How do you make that out?” asked Strubell.

“‘Cause they’re goin’ to stop at the ranch layin’ just beyond.”

Strubell and Lattin exchanged glances, and Herbert, who was watching them, was satisfied that the news did not surprise them. They had expected it from the first or they would not have persevered thus far.

“I met ‘em yesterday,” continued Bozeman, “not fur back; they had halted to cook a young antelope that Harman shot, and I jined in on the chorus.”

“What did they say to you?”

“Nothin’ in partic’lar; I told ‘em whar I was goin’, and asked ‘em what they war doin’ in this part of the world. They said they war on thar way to look at that ranch I spoke about on t’other side of the Pecos, and it might be they would spend some time thar.”

“Did they say anything about the boy with them?” asked Herbert, whose curiosity was at the highest point.

“Yas – consid’rable. I asked who he was and whar he come from; Bell told me he was a younker as wanted to take a trip through Texas fur his health – though he’s the healthiest younker I’ve looked on for many a day – and tharfur they war takin’ him along.”

“Did you have anything to say to Nick?”

“Who’s Nick?” asked the trapper, with another movement of the beard around his mouth that showed he was smiling.

“He’s the boy – my friend that we’re looking after.”

“I shook hands with him, give him some good advice that he thanked me for, and that was all.”

“I suppose he was afraid to say anything more.”

“It must have been that; Bell and Harman watched him powerful close, and though he looked as if he would like to add something, he didn’t. I tell you,” continued the trapper, addressing Strubell and the others, “I s’pected something was wrong, though I didn’t say nothin’, ‘cause thar warn’t any show for me doin’ anything. I’m s’prised to hear what you say, and, boys, if you want me to give you any help, I’m yours to command.”

This was said with a heartiness that left no doubt of its sincerity. His friends were delighted with the offer, and Herbert especially was sure that no better thing could happen. He assured old Eph he should be well paid for his trouble. The trapper did not refuse, though his proposal was made without any idea of the kind; but, as he confessed, matters had gone ill with him for a long time, and he was in need of all he could honestly earn.

He had known Rickard and Slidham for ten years, and was aware of the crooked business in which they were engaged; but, inasmuch as they did not cross his path, there was no cause to quarrel with them. He had spent more than one night in their company, and would not hesitate to do so again, without misgiving; but when he learned of their high-handed outrage, his sturdy nature was filled with wrath, and he declared himself eager not only to help rescue the boy, but to punish them for their crime.

This decision was reached within ten minutes after the handshaking, and the trapper wheeled his pony around and joined in the pursuit without further delay.

Since it was clear that the others could not be overtaken until they made their final halt, the pursuers let down in their pace, and allowed their animals to follow at a leisurely rate.

It struck Herbert as very strange that the destination of the enemies and friends of Nick Ribsam should be the same. Though the former could not have caught sight of their pursuers, they must have known of it, and were now about to stop and give them time to come up, and make battle, if they chose, for the possession of the young man, who, without any fault of his own, had become the bone of contention.

There was something about the business that he could not understand; but by listening to the stealthy conversation of his friends he gained an inkling of the truth. He learned, too, that they were less hopeful of success than he. The almost endless pursuit, however, was drawing to a close, and the end, whatever it might be, was at hand.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A RACE WITH AN AVALANCHE

THE little party had encamped in a hollow in the prairie, where, after eating their sparse lunch, they lolled on the ground, the men smoking their pipes, while their animals cropped the grass before lying down for the rest which they needed as much as their owners.

“Yes,” said Eph Bozeman, after the conversation had lasted a half hour, and took the form of reminiscences on the part of the adults, “I war eighteen years old when I went on my first trappin’ hunt with my old friend Kit Carson, and there war three trappers beside us. I war younger in them days than now, and I don’t quite understand how Kit come to let me do one of the foolishest things a younker of my age ever tried.

“It war in the fall of the year that we five went away up in the Wild River Mountain, meanin’ to stay thar till spring. Kit had been in the same region a few years before, but he said no trap had ever been set in the place, and we was sure of makin’ a good haul before the winter war over. It was November, and we went to work at once. We were purty well north, and so high up that I don’t think warm weather ever strikes the place.

“We had good luck from the start, and by the time snow began to fly had stowed away in the cave we fixed up for our winter quarters more peltries than Kit had took the whole season before. That was good; but when we begun to figure up how much money we war going to have to divide down at Bent’s Fort, after the winter war over, from the sale of the furs, Kit shook his head and said the season warn’t ended yet.

“Since we war sure of having ugly weather we had got ready for it. The luggage that war strapped to the back of our pack mules had a pair of snow-shoes for each of us, and we all knowed how to use ‘em.

“The first snow-fall come in the beginnin’ of December, but it didn’t amount to much. Howsumever, we catched it the next week, heavy. It begun comin’ down one afternoon just as it war growin’ dark. It war thin and sand-like, and when it hit our faces stung like needle p’ints. Carson went outside, and after studyin’ the sky as best he could, when he couldn’t see it at all, said it war goin’ to be the storm of the winter.

“He war right, as he generally war in such matters. When mornin’ come it war snowin’ harder than ever, and it never let up for four days and nights. Then when it stopped the fall war mor’n a dozen feet in the mountains. This settled like, and a crust formed on top, which war just the thing for our snow-shoes. On the steep inclines you’ve only to brace yourself and let the law of gravertation, as I b’lieve they call it, do the rest.

“It war powerful lonely in our cave day after day, with nothing to do but to talk and smoke and sleep, and now and then steal out to see if the mules war safely housed. It got so bad after a while that we all put on our snow-shoes and started out for a little fun.

“About a mile off we struck a gulch which we had all seen many times. It war the steepest that we knowed of within fifty miles. From the top to whar it broadened out into a valley war three-quarters of a mile, and all the way war like the roof of a house. I s’pose it war a little more than a hundred yards wide at the top, whar the upper part of the biggest kind of an avalanche had formed. There the wind and odd shape of the rocks and ground had filled the place with snow that war deeper than the tallest meetin’-house you ever laid eyes on. It had drifted and piled, reachin’ far back till it war a snow mountain of itself. Don’t you forget, too,” added the trapper impressively, “that this snow warn’t loose drift stuff, but a solid mass that, when it once started, would go down that gulch like so much rock, if you can think of a rock as big as that.

“We war standin’ and lookin’ at this mountain of snow, wonderin’ how long it would be before it would swing loose and plunge into the valley below, when a fool feelin’ come over me. I turned to Kit and the other fellers and offered to bet a beaver skin that I could start even with the avalanche and beat it down into the valley. Carson wouldn’t take the bet, for he saw what rashness it war. Yet he didn’t try to dissuade me, and the other chaps took me up right off. The idea got into my head that Carson thought I war afraid, and then nothin’ could have held me back.

“It didn’t take us long to get things ready. One of the trappers went with me to see that the start war all right, while Kit and the other picked thar way to the valley below, so as to have a sight of the home stretch.

“It took us a good while, and we had to work hard to make our way to the foot of the avalanche. When we got thar at last and I looked up at that mountain of snow ready to tumble right over onto me, I don’t mind sayin’ I did feel weak in the knees; but I wouldn’t have backed out if I knowed thar war only one chance in a million of my ever livin’ to tell it.

“The chap with me said if I wanted to give it up it would be all right – he told me afterward that he war sorry he had took my bet – but I laughed, and told him it war a go.

“He helped me fix my snow-shoes, and wouldn’t let me start till he seen everything war right. Then I stood on the edge of the gulch and held myself still by graspin’ the corner of the rock behind me. He climbed above, so he could peep over and see me. He said I war so far below that I looked like a fly, and I know that he didn’t look much bigger than that to me. It took him so long to climb to the perch that my hand was beginnin’ to grow numb, when I heard his voice, faint and distant-like:

“‘Hello, Eph, down thar! Are you ready?’

“‘Yes, and tired of waitin’,’ I answered.

“‘One – two – three!’

“As he said the last word, and it was so faint that I could hardly hear him, him and me fired our pistols at the same time, as you sometimes see at a foot race, though thar they ginerally have but the one pistol.

“You understand how it was,” added the trapper for the benefit of Herbert Watrous: “them shots war fur the avalanche. Bein’ as we war startin’ on a foot race, it war right that we should have a fair start, and the only way of doin’ that was by settin’ off some gunpowder. If the avalanche was hangin’, as it seemed to be, the shakin’ of the air made by our pistols would set it loose and start it down the valley after me. But onless it war balanced just that way the broadside of a frigate wouldn’t budge it.

“Howsumever, that war the lookout of the avalanche and not mine, but, bein’ as I meant it should be fair and square, I waited after firin’ my pistol, lookin’ and listenin’. I didn’t mean to start in ahead of the thing, nor did I mean it should get the best of me. As like as not it wouldn’t budge, and then of course the race war off.

“For a second or two I couldn’t hear nothin’ but the moanin’ of the wind away up where the other feller had climbed. Then I heard a sound like the risin’ of a big storm. It war low and faint at first, but it quickly growed into the most awful roar mortal man ever heard. Just then my friend shouted:

“‘Here she comes! Off with you!’

“I give myself a shove out over the top of the snow, curvin’ about, so that when I reached the middle of the gulch I started downward. In that second or two I seen the whole avalanche under way, hardly a hundred yards off, and it war comin’ for me like a railroad train, and goin’ faster every second.

“You can make up your mind that I war doin’ some tall travellin’ myself.

“Whew! boys, I can’t tell you much about that race. The avalanche didn’t flatten out and shoot down the gorge in loose masses, as I’ve seen ‘em do, but just stuck together and come like one solid half of the mountain itself.

“If it catched me I was a goner just as sure as if run down by a steam-engine. But you would think thar couldn’t be any chance of it catchin’ me, ’cause it war gravertation that was pullin’ us both, and one oughter go as fast as t’other. The only thing I had to do was to keep my feet and stay in the middle of the gorge. If I catched one of my toes in the snow crust I would tumble, and before I could help myself the avalanche would squelch me.

“I can never forget, but I can’t tell how I felt goin’ down that three-quarters of a mile like a cannon ball. The wind cut my face as if it war a harrycane, and everything was so misty like I couldn’t see anything plain, and so I war in mortal fear of turnin’ out of the course and hittin’ the side of the gulch.

“I don’t know how it war, but once I felt myself goin’ over. I s’pose I must have got out of line and tried to get back without exactly knowin’ what I war doin’. Kit Carson, who war watchin’ me, said I went two hundred feet balanced on one snow-shoe. He then give me up, for he war sure thar warn’t a shadder of a chance for me.

“But I swung back agin, and, keepin’ to the middle of the gulch, soon struck the level, and went skimmin’ away as fast as ever till I begun goin’ up the incline on t’other side. I war doin’ that in fine style when the p’int of one of my shoes dipped under the snow crust, and I know I turned a round dozen summersets before I stopped. It sort of mixed things in my brain, but the snow saved me from gettin’ hurt, and though the avalanche come powerful close, it didn’t quite reach me, and I won my beaver skin.”

CHAPTER XXV.

THE RANCH

EPH BOZEMAN was so familiar with the Pecos River, from its source in the Rocky Mountains to its junction with the Rio Grande, that he conducted his friends to a fording place, where it was crossed without any of them wetting their feet. Riding up the opposite bank, they started across the comparatively level country, and by the middle of the afternoon struck a piece of grazing ground, which the hunters told him belonged to the ranch that the banker, Mr. Lord, had sent Strubell and Lattin to inspect.

The lands were so extensive that there were many portions from which not the first glimpse could be gained of the adobe structure that was erected nearly a half century before.

The little party pushed onward, and before the sun dipped below the horizon began the ascent of a moderate slope, from the top of which the coveted view could be obtained.

Since Rickard and his companion must have known of the pursuit, they would be on the lookout for the Texans, who were eager to befriend Nick Ribsam. It was decided not to allow them to know the cowboys had arrived in the vicinity before the following day. Strubell hinted that important events might be brought about between the setting and the rising of the sun.

Herbert, who began to feel a natural nervousness as the crisis approached, made several inquiries about Jim-John, the half-breed, and his companion, who had been left behind. Were they not likely to abandon the pack horses on discovering they had been flanked by the Texans, and hasten to the help of the couple that had been the first to cross over from Western Texas to New Mexico? But when Eph Bozeman agreed with Strubell and Lattin that there was nothing to be feared of that nature, Herbert bade good-by to his fears and fixed his attention on that which was in front.

Leaving their animals in the hollow, where they were safe against disturbance, the four climbed the elevation, the youth carrying one field glass, while Strubell had the other. The trapper had never used anything of the kind, and refused to do so now. He claimed that his eyes were as good as ever – and he was undoubtedly right – and he needed no artificial aid.

It looked like useless precaution, but on reaching the crest the party crouched low in order to render themselves less conspicuous.

“Thar she is!” said old Eph, extending his left hand to westward, while his right grasped his inseparable rifle; “and I’ll bet them new-fangled machines won’t show you anything more than I see this very minute.”

A mile away stood a broad, firm building, of a slatish yellow color as seen through the clear air. It was of adobe or sun-dried bricks, which, in the course of time, had become compact and hard enough to resist a bombardment of six-pounders better than many forts erected for that purpose.

The land immediately surrounding the structure was smooth and quite level, and covered with grass which wore a soft, beautiful tint, mellowed by the intervening distance. On the further side of the building were a few bushes, bearing a resemblance to the well known mesquite growth so common in many portions of the Southwest.

These were the main features of the scene when viewed by the unaided eye, but the helpful field glass added something.

Lying on his face, with his instrument pointed at the building, Herbert Watrous studied it closely. He offered the instrument to Lattin, but he, seeing how much the youth was interested, declined, and waited until Strubell was ready to pass the other to him.

The youth noted the broad door in the middle, with a small narrow window on either side of the upper story. The front was like that of an immense box, there being little slope to the roof. It was probably one of those mission houses built in the preceding century by the Jesuits, who devoted their lives to the conversion of the Indians, and that, having been abandoned by them as civilization advanced, had been taken possession of by those who secured a claim to the extensive tract which surrounded it.

Being questioned on this point, Bozeman as well as the Texans replied that such was undoubtedly the fact, for it was far different from the flimsy structures of wood used by ranchmen in other sections. There was a court inside, after the fashion of the older houses in Spanish countries, the building itself enclosing this open space, so that when manned by only a few, it was capable of withstanding the attack of a large force.

Bozeman stated further that the ranch was abandoned because of the Indians. While the men who made their homes there were safe so long as they stayed behind the wall, they could not afford to remain there. Hundreds of cattle had been killed or run off by the Apaches, whose chief hunting grounds are further west, until the ranchmen who essayed the business became discouraged and gave it up.

As a consequence, the place had been allowed to run to waste for years. During that time the grazing had improved, though a large part of the thousands of acres had paid tribute to other cattlemen. Besides this, the marauding Apaches, with which our government was having much trouble at that time, were mainly in the western part of the territory and in Arizona. This made the ranch so inviting that it was beginning to attract attention, and when Mr. Lord, in San Antonio, was offered it for what was really a small sum, he was warranted in sending a couple of trustworthy experts to examine and report upon it.

This was the destination toward which the Texans and Herbert Watrous had been riding through many long days, and that was now in sight. By a strange order of things, which at present he could not understand, the ranch was the objective point also of the two evil men who held Nick Ribsam as prisoner.

He had puzzled his brain many times to read the meaning of all this; but though he had formed his theory, he forced himself to be content to wait until the Texans or events themselves should reveal the truth.

The most careful scrutiny of the front and eastern side of the adobe building failed to show any sign of life. That, however, was no proof that it was not there. The horsemen might have ridden abreast through the broad door, closing it after them, placed their horses within the numerous quarters facing the court within, and then, climbing to the roof, watch the eastern horizon for a sign of their pursuers.

Fully ten minutes passed without a word being spoken by our friends, who were inspecting the building from the crest of the elevation. They were so intent on their work that nothing else was thought of.

Having studied every foot that was visible, Herbert went over it again several times, but with no better success than at first. He was gifted with fine eyesight, and, when he finally lowered his glass with a sigh, he glanced across at Strubell, who, having passed the other instrument to Lattin, was looking expectantly into the face of the youth.

“How did you make out?” he asked.

“I couldn’t find anything at all,” replied Herbert. “Did you?”

“Well, yes; Rickard, Slidham, and Nick are there, but a bigger surprise awaits them than us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Point your glass over to the left,” replied the Texan, “and I think you will see something that will surprise you.”

CHAPTER XXVI.

BELL RICKARD’S SCHEME

HERBERT WATROUS turned his field glass to the left, and, for the first time since he caught sight of the adobe structure, gave attention to another part of his field of vision.

The cause of the Texan’s remark was apparent. A half mile beyond the building was a party of horsemen, numbering perhaps a dozen. They were grouped together and apparently holding a discussion over some matter in which all must have been interested, since they kept in such close order.

The youth had become accustomed to seeing Indians since leaving San Antonio, and needed no one to tell him that these people belonged to that race. The distance was too far for them to show distinctly through the instrument, but enough was seen to settle the point.

“What tribe are they?” he asked, addressing all his companions. Strubell was studying them without the glass, while Lattin had turned his gaze thither, and Eph was lying on his face, his brows wrinkled, his gaze concentrated on the group. It was he who answered:

“‘Paches, every one of them.”

“Are they not off their hunting grounds?” asked Herbert.

“Not ‘cordin’ to thar ideas, for every ‘Pache believes that the whole North American continent belongs to his people, which is about what every redskin thinks. Howsumever, they ginerally do thar killin’ and deviltry further over in Arizona, but them’s ‘Paches sure as you’re born.”

“They seem to be as much interested in the building as we are.”