The War Trail: The Hunt of the Wild Horse

The moon’s disc became entirely hidden from our view; her scattered beams died out; and the prairie lay dark as if shadowed by an eclipse.

We could follow the trail no farther. The ground itself was not visible, much less the hoof-prints we had been tracing; and halting simultaneously, we drew our horses togther, and sat in our saddles to deliberate upon what was best to be done.

The consultation was a short one. They who formed that little party were all men of prairie or backwoods experience, and well versed in the ways of the wilderness. It took them but little time to decide what course should be followed; and they were unanimous in their opinion. Should the sky continue clouded, we must give up the pursuit till morning, or adopt the only alternative – follow the trail by torchlight.

Of course the latter was determined upon. It was yet early in the night; many hours must intervene before we should have the light of day. I could not live through those long hours without action. Even though our progress might be slow, the knowledge that we were advancing would help to stifle the painfulness of reflection.

“A torch! a torch!”

Where was such a thing to be procured? We had with us no material with which to make one; there was no timber near! We were in the middle of a naked prairie. The universal mesquite – the algar obia glandulosa– excellent for such a purpose – grew nowhere in the neighbourhood. Who was to find the torch? Even Rube’s ingenuity could not make one out of nothing.

”Écoutez, mon capitaine!” cried Le Blanc, an old voyageur – ”écoutez! vy me no ride back, et von lanterne bring from ze ville Mexicaine?”

True, why not? We were yet but a few miles from the rancheria. The Canadian’s idea was a good one.

“Je connais,” he continued – “know I, pe gar! ze ver spot ou – vere – sont cachées – hid les chandelles magnifiques – von, deux, tree big candle – vax, vax – ”

“Wax-candles?”

“Oui – oui, messieurs! très grand comme un baton; ze ver chose pour allumer la prairie.”

“You know where they are? You could find them, Le Blanc?”

“Oui, messieurs – je connais: les chandelles sont cachées dans l’église – zey are in ze church hid.”

“Ha! in the church?”

“Oui, messieurs; c’est un grand sacrilege, mon Dieu! ver bad; mais n’importe cela. Eef mon capitaine permit – vill allow pour aller Monsieur Quack’bosh, he go chez moi; nous chercherons; ve bring ze chandelles – pe gar ve bring him!”

From the mixed gibberish of the voyageur, I could gather his meaning well enough. He knew of a depository of wax-candles, and the church of the rancheria was the place in which they were kept.

I was not in a frame of mind to care much for the sacrilege, and my companions were still less scrupulous. The act was determined upon, and Le Blanc and Quackenboss, without more delay, took the back-track for the village.

The rest of us dismounted; and, picketing our horses to the grass, lay down to await the return of the messengers.

Chapter Fifty Nine.

Trailing by Torch-Light

While thus inactive, my mind yielded itself up to the contemplation of painful probabilities. Horrid spectacles passed before my imagination. I saw the white horse galloping over the plain, pursued by wolves, and shadowed by black vultures. To escape these hungry pursuers, I saw him dash into the thick chapparal, there to encounter the red panther or the fierce prowling bear – there to encounter the sharp thorns of the acacias, the barbed spines of the cactus, and the recurving claw-like armature of the wild aloes. I could see the red blood streaming adown his white flanks – not his blood, but that of the helpless victim stretched prostrate along his back. I could see the lacerated limbs – the ankles chafed and swollen – the garments torn to shreds – the drooping head – the long loose hair tossed and trailing to the earth – the white wan lips – the woe-bespeaking eyes – Oh! I could bear my reflections no longer. I sprang to my feet, and paced the prairie with the aimless, unsteady step of a madman.

Again the kind-hearted trapper approached, and renewed his efforts to console me.

“We could follow the trail,” he said, “by torch or candle light, almost as fast as we could travel; we should be many miles along it before morning; maybe before then we should get sight of the steed. It would not be hard to surround and capture him; now that he was half-tamed, he might not run from us; if he did, he could be overtaken. Once in view, we would not lose sight of him again. The saynyora would be safe enough; there was nothing to hurt her: the wolves would not know the ‘fix’ she was in, neyther the ‘bars’ nor ‘painters.’ We should be sure to come up with her before the next night, an would find her first-rate; a little tired and hungry, no doubt, but nothing to hurt. We should relieve her, and rest would set all right again.”

Notwithstanding the rude phrase in which these consolatory remarks were made, I appreciated their kind intention.

Garey’s speech had the effect of rendering me more hopeful; and in calmer mood, I awaited the return of Quackenboss and the Canadian.

These did not linger. Two hours had been allowed them to perform their errand; but long before the expiration of that period, we heard the double tramp of their horses as they came galloping across the plain.

In a few minutes they rode up, and we could see in the hands of Le Blanc three whitish objects, that in length and thickness resembled stout walking-canes. We recognised les chandelles magnifiques.

They were the property of the church – designed, no doubt, to have illumined the altar upon the occasion of some grand dia de fiesta.

“Voilà! mon capitaine!” cried the Canadian, as he rode forward – “voilà les chandelles! Ah, mon Dieu! c’est von big sacrilege, et je suis bon Chrétien – buen Catolico, as do call ’im ze dam Mexicaine; bien – ze bon Dieu me forgive – God ve pardon vill pour – for ze grand necessitie; sure certaine he will me pardon – Lige et moi – ze brave Monsieur Quack’bosh.”

The messengers had brought news from the village. Some rough proceedings had taken place since our departure. Men had been punished; fresh victims had been found under the guidance of Pedro and others of the abused. The trees in the church enclosure that night bore horrid fruit.

The alcalde was not dead; and Don Ramon, it was supposed, still survived, but had been carried off a prisoner by the guerrilla! The rangers were yet at the rancheria; many had been desirous of returning with Le Blanc and Quackenboss, but I had sent orders to the lieutenants to take all back to camp as soon as their affair was over. The fewer of the troop that should be absent, the less likelihood of our being missed, and those I had with me I deemed enough for my purpose. Whether successful or not, we should soon return to camp. It would then be time to devise some scheme for capturing the leader and prime actor in this terrible tragedy.

Hardly waiting to hear the story, we lighted the great candles, and moved once more along the trail.

Fortunately, the breeze was but slight, and only served to make the huge waxen torches flare more freely. By their brilliant blaze, we were enabled to take up the tracks, quite as rapidly as by the moonlight. At this point, the horse had been still going at full gallop; and his course, as it ran in a direct line, was the more easily followed.

Dark as the night was, we soon perceived we were heading for a point well known to all of us – the prairie mound; and, under a faint belief that the steed might have there come to a stop, we pressed forward with a sort of hopeful anticipation.

After an hour’s tracking, the white cliffs loomed within the circle of our view – the shining selenite glancing back the light of our tapers, like a wall set with diamonds.

We approached with caution, still keeping on the trail, but also keenly scrutinising the ground in advance of us – in hopes of perceiving the object of our search. Neither by the cliff, nor in the gloom around, was living form to be traced.

Sure enough the steed had halted there, or, at all events, ceased from his wild gallop. He had approached the mound in a walk, as the tracks testified; but how, and in what direction, had he gone thence? His hoof-prints no longer appeared. He had passed over the shingle, that covered the plain to a distance of many yards from the base of the cliff, and no track could be found beyond!

Several times we went around the mesa, carrying our candles everywhere. We saw skeletons of men and horses, with skulls detached, fragments of dresses, and pieces of broken armour – souvenirs of our late skirmish. We looked into our little fortress, and gazed upon the rock that had sheltered us; we glanced up the gorge where we had climbed, and beheld the rope by which we had descended still hanging in its place: all these we saw, but no further traces of the steed!

Round and round we went, back and forward, over the stony shingle, and along its outer edge, but still without coming upon the tracks. Whither could the horse have gone!

Perhaps, with a better light, we might have found the trail; but for a long hour we searched, without striking upon any sign of it. Perhaps we might still have found it, even with our waxen torches, but for an incident that not only interrupted our search, but filled us with fresh apprehension, and almost stifled our hopes of success.

The interruption did not come unexpected. The clouds had for some time given ample warning. The big solitary drops that at intervals fell with plashing noise upon the rocks, were but the avant-couriers of one of the great rainstorms of the prairie, when water descends as if from a shower-bath. We knew from the signs that such a storm was nigh; and while casting around to recover the trail, it came down in all its fury.

Almost in an instant our lights were extinguished, and our bootless search brought to a termination.

We drew up under the rocks, and stood side by side in sullen silence. Even the elements seemed against me. In my heart’s bitterness, I cursed them.

Chapter Sixty.

The Sombrero

The horses cowered under the cold rain, all of them jaded and hungry. The hot dusty march of the morning, and the long rough gallop of the night, had exhausted their strength; and they stood with drooped heads and hanging ears, dozing and motionless.

The men, too, were wearied – some of them quite worn out. A few kept their feet, bridle in hand, under shelter of the impending cliff; the others, having staggered down, with their backs against the rock, had almost instantly fallen asleep.

For me was neither sleep nor rest; I did not even seek protection against the storm; but standing clear of the cliff, received the drenching shower full upon my shoulders. It was the chill rain of the “norther;” but at that moment neither cold norte nor hot sirocco could have produced upon me an impression of pain. To physical suffering I was insensible. I should even have welcomed it, for I well understood the truth, proverbially expressed in that language, rich above all others in proverbial lore – “un clavo saca otro clavo” and still more fully illustrated by the poet:

“Tristezas me hacen triste,Tristezas salgo a buscar,A ver si con tristezasTristezas puedo olvidar.”

Yes, under any other form, I should have welcomed physical pain as a neutraliser of my mental anguish; but that cold norther brought no consolation.

Sadly the reverse. It was the harbinger of keen apprehension; for not only had it interrupted our search, but should the heavy rain continue only for a few hours, we might be able neither to find or further to follow the trail. It would be blinded– obliterated – lost.

Can you wonder that in my heart I execrated those black clouds, and that driving deluge? – that with my lips I cursed the sky and the storm, the moon and the stars, the red lightning and the rolling thunder?

My anathema ended, I stood in sullen silence, leaning against the body of my brave horse – whose sides shivered under the chilly rain, though I felt not its chill.

Absorbed in gloomy thought, I recked not what was passing around me; and, for an unnoted period, I remained in this speechless abstraction.

My reverie was broken. Some expressions that reached my ear told me that at least two of my followers had not yet yielded to weariness or despair. Two of them were in conversation; and I easily recognised the voices of the trappers.

Tireless, used to stern struggles – to constant warfare with the elements – with nature herself – these true men never thought of giving up, until the last effort of human ingenuity had failed. From their conversation, I gathered that they had not yet lost hope of finding the trail, but were meditating on some plan for recovering and following it.

With renewed eagerness I faced towards them and listened. Both talked in a low voice. Garey was speaking, as I turned to them.

“I guess you’re right, Rube. The hoss must a gone thar, an if so, we’re boun’ to fetch his tracks. Thar’s mud, if I remember right, all roun’ the pool. We can carry the cannel under Dutch’s sombrera.”

“Ye-es,” drawled Rube in reply; “an ef this niggur don’t miskalk’late, we ain’t a gwine to need eyther cannel or sombrairay. Lookee yander!” – the speaker pointed to a break in the clouds – “I’ll stake high, I kin mizyure this hyur shower wi’ the tail o’ a goat. Wagh! we’ll hev the moon agin, clur as iver in the inside o’ ten minnits – see ef we haint.”

“So much the better, old hoss; but hadn’t we best first try for the tracks; time’s precious, Rube – ”

“In coorse it ur; git the cannel an the sombrairay, an le’s be off then. The rest o’ these fellurs hed better stay hyur, an snore it out; thu’ll only bamfoozle us.”

“Lige!” called out Garey, addressing himself to Quackenboss – “Lige! gi’ us yur hat a bit.”

A loud snore was the only reply. The ranger, seated with his back against the rock, and his head drooping over his breast, was sound asleep.

“Durned sleepy-head!” exclaimed Rube, in a tone of peevish impatience. “Prod ’im wi’ the point o’ yur bowie, Bill! Rib-roast ’im wi’ yur wipin’-stick! Lam ’im wi’ yur laryette! – gi’ ’im a kick i’ the guts! – roust ’im up, durn ’im!”

“Lige! – he! – Dutchy!” cried Garey, approaching the sleeper, and shaking him by the shoulder; “I want your sombrera.”

“Ho! wo! stand still! Jingo! he’ll throw me. I can’t get off; the spurs are locked. He! wo! wo!”

Rube and Garey broke into a loud cachinnation that awakened the rest of the slumberers. Quackenboss alone remained asleep, fighting in his dreams with the wild Indian horse.

“Durned mulehead!” cried Rube after a pause; “let ’im go on at thet long’s he likes it. Chuck the hat off o’ his head, Bill! we don’t want him– thet we don’t.”

There was a little pique in the trapper’s tone. The breach that the ranger had made, while acting as a faithful sentinel, was not yet healed.

Garey made no further attempts to arouse the sleeper, but in obedience to the order of his comrade, lifted off the hat; and, having procured one of the great candles, he and Rube started off without saying another word, of giving any clue to their design.

Though joyed at what I had heard, I refrained from interrogating them. Some of my followers who put questions received only ambiguous answers. From the manner of the trappers, I saw that they wished to be left to themselves; and I could well trust them to the development of whatever design they had conceived.

On leaving us, they walked straight out from the cliff; but how far they continued in this direction it was impossible to tell. They had not lighted the candle; and after going half-a-dozen steps, their forms disappeared from our view amidst the darkness and thickly-falling rain.

Chapter Sixty One.

The Trail Recovered

The rangers, after a moment of speculation as to the designs of the trappers, resumed their attitude of repose. Fatigued as they were, even the cold could not keep them awake.

After a pause, the voice of Quackenboss could be heard, in proof that that heavy sleeper was at length aroused; the rain falling upon his half-bald skull had been more effective than the shouts and shaking of Garey.

“Hillo? Where’s my hat?” inquired he in a mystified tone, at the same time stirring himself, and groping about among the rocks. “Where is my hat? Boys, did any o’ ye see anything o’ a hat, did ye?” His shouts again awoke the sleepers.

“What sort of a hat, Lige?” inquired one.

“A black hat – that Mexican sombrera.”

“Oh! a black hat; no – I saw no black hat.”

“You darned Dutchman! who do you expect could see a black hat such a night as this, or a white one eyther? Go to sleep!”

“Come, boys, I don’t want none o’ your nonsense: I want my hat. Who’s tuk my hat?”

“Are you sure it was a black hat?”

“Bah! the wind has carried it away.”

“Pe gar! Monsieur Quack’bosh – votre chapeau grand – you great beeg ’at – est-il perdu? – is loss? – c’est vrai? Pardieu! les loups – ze wolfs have it carr’d avay – have it mange – eat? c’est vrai?”

“None o’ your gibberish, Frenchy. Have you tuk my hat?”

“Moi! votre chapeau grand! No, Monsieur Quack’bosh – vraiment je ne l’ai pas; pe gar, no!”

“Have you got it, Stanfield?” asked the botanist, addressing himself to a Kentucky backwoodsman of that name.

“Dang yar hat! What shed I do wi’ yar hat? I’ve got my own hat, and that’s hat enough for me.”

“Have you my hat, Bill Black?”

“No,” was the prompt reply; “I’ve got neery hat but my own, and that ain’t black, I reckon, ’cept on sich a night as this.”

“I tell you what, Lige, old fellow! you lost your hat while you were a ridin’ the mustang just now: the hoss kicked it off o’ your head.”

A chorus of laughter followed this sally, in the midst of which Quackenboss could be heard apostrophising both his hat and his comrades in no very respectful terms, while he commenced scrambling over the ground in vain search after the lost sombrero, amidst the jokes and laughter uttered at his expense.

To this merriment of my followers I gave but little heed: my thoughts were intent on other things. My eyes were fixed upon that bright spot in the sky, that had been pointed out by Rube; and my heart gladdened, as I perceived that it was every moment growing brighter and bigger.

The rain still fell thick and fast; but the edge of the cloud-curtain was slowly rising above the eastern horizon, as though drawn up by some invisible hand.

Should the movement continue, I felt confident that in a few minutes – as Rube had predicted – the sky would be clear again, and the moon shining brightly as ever. These were joyous anticipations.

At intervals I glanced towards the prairie, and listened to catch some sound – either the voices of the trappers, or the tread of their returning footsteps. No such sounds could be heard.

I was becoming impatient, when I perceived a sudden waif of light far out upon the plain. It seemed to be again extinguished; but in the same place, and the moment after, appeared a small, steady flame, twinkling like a solitary star through the bluish mist of the rain. For a few seconds it remained fixed, and then commenced moving – as if carried low down along the surface of the ground.

There was nothing mysterious about this lone light. To Quackenboss only it remained an unexplained apparition; and he might have mistaken it for the fata morgana. The others had been awake when Rube and Garey took their departure, and easily recognised the lighted candle in the hands of the trappers.

For some time the light appeared to move backwards and forwards, turning at short distances, as if borne in irregular circles, or in zig-zag lines. We could perceive the sheen of water between us and the flame – as though there was a pond, or perhaps a portion of the prairie, flooded by the rain.

After a while the light became fixed, and a sharp exclamation was heard across the plain, which all of us recognised as being in the voice of the trapper Rube.

Again the light was in motion – now flitting along more rapidly, and as if carried in a straight line over the prairie.

We followed it with eager eyes. We saw it was moving further and further away; and my companions hazarded the conjecture that the trappers had recovered the trail.

This was soon verified by one of themselves – Garey – whose huge form, looming through the mist, was seen approaching the spot; and though the expression of his face could not be noted in the darkness, his bearing betokened that he brought cheerful tidings.

“Rube’s struck the trail, capt’n,” said he in a quiet voice as he came up: “yonder he goes, whar you see the bleeze o’ the cannel! He’ll soon be out o’ sight, if we don’t make haste, an follow.”

Without another word, we seized the reins, sprang once more into our saddles, and rode off after the twinkling star, that beaconed us across the plain.

Rube was soon overtaken; and we perceived that despite the storm, he was rapidly progressing along the trail, his candle sheltered from the rain under the ample sombrero.

In answer to numerous queries, the old trapper vouchsafed only an occasional “Wagh!” evidently proud of this new exhibition of his skill. With Garey, the curious succeeded better; and as we continued on, the latter explained to them how the trail had been recovered by his comrade – for to Rube, it appeared, was the credit due.

Rube remembered the mesa spring. It was the water in its branch that we had seen gleaming under the light. The thoughtful trapper conjectured, and rightly as it proved, that the steed would stop there to drink. He had passed along the stony shingle by the mound – simply because around the cliff lay his nearest way to the water – and had followed a dry ridge that led directly from the mesa to the spring-branch. Along this ridge, going gently at the time, his hoof had left no marks – at least none that could be distinguished by torch-light – and this was why the trail had been for the moment lost. Rube, however, remembered that around the spring there was a tract of soft boggy ground; and he anticipated that in this the hoof-prints would leave a deep impression. To find them he needed only a “kiver” for the candle, and the huge hat of Quackenboss served the purpose well. An umbrella would scarcely have been better.

As the trappers had conjectured, they found the tracks in the muddy margin of the spring-branch. The steed had drunk at the pool; but immediately after had resumed his wild flight, going westward from the mound.

Why had he gone off at a gallop? Had he been alarmed by aught? Or had he taken fresh affright, at the strange rider upon his back?

I questioned Garey. I saw that he knew why. He needed pressing for the answer.

He gave it at length, but with evident reluctance. These were his words of explanation —

“Thar are wolf-tracks on the trail!”

Chapter Sixty Two.

Wolves on the Track

The wolves, then, were after him!

The trackers had made out their footprints in the mud of the arroyo. Both kinds had been there – the large brown wolf of Texas, and the small barking coyote of the plains. A full pack there had been, as the trappers could tell by the numerous tracks, and that they were following the horse, the tracks also testified to these men of strange intelligence. How knew they this? By what sign?

To my inquiries, I obtained answer from Garey.

Above the spring-branch extended a shelving bank; up this the steed had bounded, after drinking at the pool. Up this, too, the wolves had sprung after: they had left the indentation of their claws in the soft loam.

How knew Garey that they were in pursuit of the horse?

The “scratches” told him they were going at their fastest, and they would not have sprung so far had they not been pursuing some prey. There were footmarks of no other animal except theirs, and the hoof-prints of that steed; and that they were after him was evident to the trapper, because the tracks of the wolves covered those of the horse.

Garey had no more doubt of the correctness of his reasoning, than a geometrician of the truth of a theorem in Euclid.

I groaned in spirit as I was forced to adopt his conclusion. But it was all probable – too probable. Had the steed been alone – Unembarrassed – free – it was not likely the wolves would have chased him thus. The wild-horse in his prime is rarely the object of their attack; though the old and infirm – the gravid mare, and the feeble colt – often fall before these hungry hunters of the plains. Both common wolf and coyote possess all the astuteness of the fox, and know, as if by instinct, the animal that is wounded to death. They will follow the stricken deer that has escaped from the hunter; but if it prove to be but slightly harmed, instinctively they abandon the chase.