Each man advanced cautiously, with his gun thrust forward, looking on all sides at once, and not leaving a bush, a pebble, or a blade of grass unexamined. Suddenly Curumilla imitated the cry of the jay, the signal for assembling in the event of any important discovery. All rushed toward the spot whence the signal came; in the midst of the lofty grass, the ground was trampled and the lower branches broken.
"Red Cedar's horse was tied up here," Valentine said. "Attention! We are about to catch the bear in his den. You know with what sort of men we have to deal; be prudent: if not, there will soon be broken bones and punctured skins among us."
Without adding a word further, the hunter again took the head of the file. He carefully parted the bushes, and unhesitatingly entered the thicket. At this moment the furious barking of a dog could be heard.
"Hilloh!" a rough voice shouted: "What's the matter, Black? Did not the redskins have a sufficient lesson last night, that they want to try it again?"
These words were followed by the grating sound of a rifle being cocked. Valentine made his comrades a sign to stop, and boldly advanced.
"They are not Indians," he said, in a loud and firm voice: "it is I, Koutonepi, an old acquaintance, who wishes to have a chat with you."
"I have nothing to say to you," Red Cedar, still invisible, answered. "I know not why you have followed me to this place: we never were such good friends, I fancy, that you should desire the pleasure of my company."
"That's true," the hunter remarked: "you may be fully assured that we were always very bad friends: but no matter; call off your dog."
"If your intentions are good, and you are alone, you can advance, and will be received as a friend."
And he whistled to his dog, which rejoined him.
"As regards my intentions, I can assure you that they are good," the Trail-hunter replied, as he drew back the branches.
He suddenly found himself in front of Red Cedar, who was standing, rifle in hand, in the narrow entrance of a grotto. The two men were scarce fifteen yards apart, examining each other suspiciously. This is, however, the custom of the prairies, where all meetings are the same: distrust always holds the first place.
"Stop," the squatter shouted. "For what we have to say to each other, we need not be ear to ear. What do we care if the birds and serpents hear our conversation? Come, speak! What have you come here for? Empty your wallet, and make haste about it; for I have no time to listen to your stories."
"Hum!" the other answered; "my stories are as good as yours, and perhaps you would have done better by spending your time in listening to them, rather than acting as you have done."
"What do you mean?" Red Cedar said, as he struck the ground with the butt of his rifle: "You know I am not fond of sermons. I am a free hunter, and act as I think proper."
"Come, come," the huntsman went on in a conciliatory tone, while quietly drawing nearer; "do not take up that tone: all may be arranged. Hang it, what is the question, if we come to that? Only about a woman you have carried off!"
The bandit listened to Valentine without attaching much importance to his remarks. For some instants his attentive ear appeared to be catching vague sounds; his eye sounded the depth of the woods; his nostrils dilated; and all the instincts of the wild beast were revealed. A presentiment told him that he was incurring some unknown danger.
On his side, the hunter watched the slightest movements of his adversary: not one of the changes on his face had escaped him, and though apparently unmoved, he kept on his guard.
"Traitor!" the squatter suddenly shouted, as he raised his rifle to his shoulder; "You shall die!"
"What a fellow you are!" Valentine retorted, as he dodged behind a tree. "Not yet, if you please."
"Surrender, Red Cedar!" Don Miguel shouted, as he appeared, followed by the stranger and Curumilla: "Surrender!"
"What do you say? I surrender! First try and force me to do so. I swear that I will kill you first," the bandit answered with a terrible accent: "I hold your life in my hands. Are you aware of that?"
"Come," Valentine retorted, "don't be so rough! There are four of us, and I suppose you do not intend to kill us all."
"For the last time, will you retire?" the bandit said, with a furious gesture.
"Come, come," Bloodson shouted in a loud voice, "do not attempt any useless resistance. Red Cedar, your hour has arrived."
At the sound of this voice, the bandit's face was suddenly covered by a livid pallor, and a convulsive tremor passed over his limbs.
"Look out, he is going to fire!" Valentine shouted.
Two shots were fired so closely together, that they sounded as one. The squatter's gun, shattered in his hands, fell to the ground. Valentine, who wished to capture the bandit alive, could only hit on this way of turning his bullet, which, in fact, whistled harmlessly past his ear.
"Con mil demonios!" the scalp hunter yelled, as he rushed madly into the grotto, closely followed by his enemies, with the exception of Curumilla.
There they found him armed with his pistols, like a boar tracked to its lair. The bandit struggled with all the frenzy of despair, not yet giving up the hope of escape. His dog, standing by his side, with bloodshot eyes and open jaws, only awaited a signal from its master to rush on the assailants. The squatter suddenly fired four shots, but too hurriedly to wound anybody. He then hurled the useless weapons at his foemen's heads, and, bounding like a panther, disappeared at the end of the grotto, shouting with a sinister grin:
"I am not caught yet!"
During all the incidents of this scene, the bandit had preserved his coolness; calculating the chances of safety left him, so that he might profit by them immediately. While occupying his enemies, he remembered that the grotto had a second outlet.
Suddenly he stopped, uttering a ghastly oath: he had forgotten that the swollen Gila at the moment inundated this issue. The villain walked several times round the grotto with the impotent rage of a wild beast that has fallen into a trap. He heard, in the windings of the cavern, the footsteps of his pursuers drawing closer. The sands were counted for him. One minute later, and he was lost.
"Malediction!" he said, "All fails me at once."
He must escape at all risks, and try to reach his horse, which was fastened up a short distance off on a small islet of sand, which the water, continually rising, threatened soon to cover. The bandit took a parting look round, bounded forward, and plunged into the abyss of waters, which hoarsely closed over him.
Valentine and his comrades almost immediately appeared, bearing torches; but the bandit had wholly disappeared. All was silent in the grotto.
"The villain has committed suicide," the hacendero said.
The hunter shook his head.
"I doubt it," he said.
"Listen!" the stranger hurriedly interrupted.
A shot echoed through the cave, and the three men rushed forward. This is what had happened:
Instead of following his comrades, the Indian chief, certain that the bandit had not been such a fool as to enter a cave without an outlet, preferred watching the banks of the river, in case Red Cedar tried to escape in that way. The chiefs previsions were correct. Red Cedar, as we have seen, attempted to fly by the second outlet of the grotto. After swimming for some distance, the squatter landed on a small islet, and almost immediately disappeared in a dense clump of trees.
Not one of his movements had escaped Curumilla, who was hidden behind a projecting rock. Red Cedar reappeared on horseback. The Indian chief took a careful aim at him, and at the moment the animal put its hoof in the water it fell back, dragging down its rider with it. Curumilla had put a bullet through the horse's skull. Red Cedar rose with the rapidity of lightning, and dashed into the water. The hunters looked at each other for a moment in disappointment.
Not one of his movements had escaped Curumilla, who was hidden behind a projecting rock. Red Cedar reappeared on horseback. The Indian chief took a careful aim at him, and at the moment the animal put its hoof in the water it fell back, dragging down its rider with it. Curumilla had put a bullet through the horse's skull. Red Cedar rose with the rapidity of lightning, and dashed into the water. The hunters looked at each other for a moment in disappointment.
"Bah!" Valentine said, philosophically. "That bandit is not to be feared now; we have clipped his nails."
"That is true," said Bloodson; "but they will grow again!"
CHAPTER V
THE GROTTO
We will now resume our narrative at the point where we left it at the end of our first chapter, and rejoin Red Cedar, who thanks to the weapons found in the cache, had regained all his ferocity and was already dreaming of revenge.
The bandit's position, however, was still very perplexing, and would have terrified any man whose mind was not so strong as his own. However large the desert may be however perfect a man's knowledge may be of the prairie refuges it is impossible for him, if alone, to escape for any length of time the search of persons who have an interest in catching him.
This had just been proved to Red Cedar in a peremptory way: he did not conceal from himself the numberless difficulties that surrounded him, and could not dream of regaining his encampment. The enemies on his track would not fail to catch him, and this time they would not allow him to escape so easily.
This position was intolerable, and it must be put an end to at all risks. But Red Cedar was not the man to remain crushed by the blow that had struck him: he drew himself together again, in order to prepare his vengeance promptly. Like all evil natures, Red Cedar regarded as an insult all attempts persons made to escape from his perfidity. At this moment he had a rude account to settle with whites and redskins. Alone as he was, he could not think of rejoining his comrades and attacking the enemies, who would have crushed him under their heel like a venomous serpent: he needed allies.
His hesitation was but short, and his plan was formed in a few minutes. He resolved to carry out the project for which he had left his comrades, and proceeded toward an Apache village, situate a short distance off.
Still, he did not intend to go there, for the present at least, for, after a rapid walk of more than three hours, he suddenly turned to his right, and retiring from the banks of the Gila, which he had hitherto followed, he left the road to the village, and entered a mountainous region, differing entirely in its character from the plains he had hitherto traversed.
The ground rose perceptibly, and was intersected by streams that ran down to the Gila. Clumps of the ferns, drawing closer together, served as the advanced guard of a gloomy virgin forest on the horizon. The landscape gradually assumed a more savage and abrupt aspect, and spurs of the imposing Sierra Madre displayed here and there their desolate peaks.
Red Cedar walked along with that light and springy step peculiar to men accustomed to cover long distances on foot, looking neither to the right nor left, and apparently following a direction he was perfectly acquainted with. Smiling at his thoughts, he did not seem to notice that the sun had almost entirely disappeared behind the imposing mass of the virgin forest, and that night was falling with extreme rapidity.
The howling of the wild beasts could be heard echoing in the depths of the ravines, mingled with the miauwling of the carcajous and the barking of the prairie wolves bands of which were already prowling at a short distance from the bandit. But he, apparently insensible to all these hints about getting a resting place for the night, continued his advance in the mountains, among which he had entered some time previously.
On reaching a species of crossroad, if such a term can be employed in speaking of a country where no roads exist, he stopped and looked all around him. After a few moments' hesitation, he buried himself in a narrow path running between two hills, and boldly climbed up a very steep ascent. At length, after a fatiguing climb, that lasted nearly three-quarters of an hour, he reached a spot where the path, suddenly interrupted, only presented a gulf, in the bottom of which the murmurs of invisible waters could be just heard.
The precipice was about twenty yards in width, and over it lay an enormous log, serving as a bridge. At the end of this was the entrance of a natural grotto, in which the flames of a fire flashed up at intervals. Red Cedar stopped a smile of satisfaction curled his thin lips at the sight of the flames reflected on the walls of the grotto.
"They are there," he said, in a low voice, and as if speaking to himself.
He then put his fingers in his mouth, and imitated with rare skill the soft and cadenced note of the maukawis. An instant after, a similar cry was heard from the grotto; and Red Cedar clapped his hands thrice.
The gigantic shadow of a man, reflected by the light of the fire, appeared in the entrance of the grotto, and a rude and powerful voice shouted in the purest Castilian
"Who goes there?"
"A friend," the bandit answered.
"Your name, caray," the stranger continued; "there are no friends in the desert at this hour of the night."
"Oh, oh!" Red Cedar continued; bursting into a hoarse laugh, "I see that Don Pedro Sandoval is as prudent as ever."
"Man or demon, as you know me so well," the stranger said, in a somewhat softer tone, "tell me what your name is, I say once again, or, by heaven, I'll lodge a couple of slugs in your skull. So do not let me run the risk of killing a friend."
"Come, come, calm yourself, hidalgo; did you not recognise my voice, and have you so short a memory that you have already forgotten Red Cedar."
"Red Cedar!" the Spaniard repeated in surprise, "then you are not hung yet, my worthy friend?"
"Not yet; to my knowledge, gossip. I hope to prove it to you ere long."
"Come across, in the devil's name; do not let us go on talking at this distance."
The stranger left the bridgehead, where he had stationed himself, probably to dispute the passage in case of necessity, and drew off, uncocking his rifle. Not waiting for a second invitation, Red Cedar bounded on to the tree and crossed it in a few seconds; he affectionately shook the Spaniard's hand, and then they entered the grotto together.
This grotto or cavern, whichever you please to call it, was wide and lofty, divided into several compartments by large frames of reeds, rising to a height of at least eight feet, and forming ten rooms or cells, five on either side the grotto, beginning at about twenty paces from the entrance a space left free to act as kitchen and dining room. The entrance to each cell was formed by a zarapé, which descended to the ground after the fashion of a curtain door.
At the extremity of the passage that ran between the two rows of cells was another compartment, serving as storehouses; and beyond this a natural passage ran through the mountain, and terminated almost a league off, in an almost inaccessible ravine.
All proved that this grotto was not a bivouac chosen for a night or two, but an abode adopted for many years past, in which all the comfort had been collected which it is possible to procure in these regions remote from any centre of population.
Round the fire, over which an enormous quarter of elk meat was roasting, nine men, armed to the teeth, were sitting and smoking in silence. On Red Cedar's entrance, they rose and came up to shake his hand eagerly, and with a species of respect. These men wore the garb of hunters or wood rangers: their marked features, their ferocious and crafty faces, on which the traces of the most disgraceful and ignoble passions were marked in indelible characters, strongly lighted up by the fantastic flashes of the fire, had something strange and gloomy about them, which inspired terror and revulsion.