“Stole away to save his carcass.
We’ll find him, as soon as we’ve settled this business; and I guess a little hanging will draw the truth out of him.”
“If ye mean abeout the tiger, ye’ll draw no other truth out o’ him than hat ye’ve got a’ready.
I see’d thet varmint myself, an war jest in time to save the young fellur from its claws.
But thet aint the peint. Ye’ve had holt o’ the Irish, I ’spose.
Did he tell ye o’ nothin’ else he seed hyur?”
“He had a yarn about Indians.
Who believes it?”
“Wal; he tolt me the same story, and that looks like some truth in’t.
Besides, he declurs they wur playin’ curds, an hyur’s the things themselves.
I found ’em lying scattered about the floor o’ the shanty.
Spanish curds they air.”
Zeb draws the pack out of his pocket, and hands it over to the Regulator Chief.
The cards, on examination, prove to be of Mexican manufacture—such as are used in the universal game of monte—the queen upon horseback “cavallo”—the spade represented by a sword “espada”—and the club “baston” symbolised by the huge paviour-like implement, seen in picture-books in the grasp of hairy Orson.
“Who ever heard of Comanches playing cards?” demands he, who has scouted the evidence about the Indians. “Damned ridiculous!”
“Ridiklus ye say!” interposes an old trapper who had been twelve months a prisoner among the Comanches. “Ridiklus it may be; but it’s true f’r all that.
Many’s the game this coon’s seed them play, on a dressed burner hide for their table.
That same Mexikin montay too. I reckon they’ve larned it from thar Mexikin captives; of the which they’ve got as good as three thousand in thar different tribes.
Yes, sirree!” concludes the trapper. “The Keymanchees do play cards—sure as shootin’.”
Zeb Stump is rejoiced at this bit of evidence, which is more than he could have given himself. It strengthens the case for the accused.
The fact, of there having been Indians in the neighbourhood, tends to alter the aspect of the affair in the minds of the Regulators—hitherto under the belief that the Comanches were marauding only on the other side of the settlement.
“Sartin sure,” continues Zeb, pressing the point in favour of an adjournment of the trial, “thur’s been Injuns hyur, or some thin’ durned like—Geesus Geehosofat!
Whar’s she comin’ from?”
The clattering of hoofs, borne down from the bluff, salutes the ear of everybody at the same instant of time.
No one needs to inquire, what has caused Stump to give utterance to that abrupt interrogatory.
Along the top of the cliff, and close to its edge, a horse is seen, going at a gallop. There is a woman—a lady—upon his back, with hat and hair streaming loosely behind her—the string hindering the hat from being carried altogether away!
So wild is the gallop—so perilous from its proximity to the precipice—you might suppose the horse to have run away with his rider.
But no.
You may tell that he has not, by the actions of the equestrian herself. She seems not satisfied with the pace; but with whip, spur, and voice keeps urging him to increase it!
This is plain to the spectators below; though they are puzzled and confused by her riding so close to the cliff.
They stand in silent astonishment. Not that they are ignorant of who it is. It would be strange if they were. That woman equestrian—man-seated in the saddle—once seen was never more to be forgotten.
She is recognised at the first glance.
One and all know the reckless galloper to be the guide—from whom, scarce half-an-hour ago, they had parted upon the prairie.
Chapter Sixty Six. Chased by Comanches.
It was Isidora who had thus strangely and suddenly shown herself.
What was bringing her back?
And why was she riding at such a perilous pace?
To explain it, we must return to that dark reverie, from which she was startled by her encounter with the “Tejanos.”
While galloping away from the Alamo, she had not thought of looking back, to ascertain whether she was followed.
Absorbed in schemes of vengeance, she had gone on—without even giving a glance behind.
It was but slight comfort to her to reflect: that Louise Poindexter had appeared equally determined upon parting from the jacale.
With a woman’s intuitive quickness, she suspected the cause; though she knew, too well, it was groundless.
Still, there was some pleasure in the thought: that her rival, ignorant of her happy fortune, was suffering like herself.
There was a hope, too, that the incident might produce estrangement in the heart of this proud Creole lady towards the man so condescendingly beloved; though it was faint, vague, scarce believed in by her who conceived it.
Taking her own heart as a standard, she was not one to lay much stress on the condescension of love: her own history was proof of its levelling power.
Still was there the thought that her presence at the jacale had given pain, and might result in disaster to the happiness of her hated rival.
Isidora had begun to dwell upon this with a sort of subdued pleasure; that continued unchecked, till the time of her rencontre with the Texans.
On turning back with these, her spirits underwent a change.
The road to be taken by Louise, should have been the same as that, by which she had herself come.
But no lady was upon it.