I think I can hear her riding this way through the gulley.
Of course she knows it—as it was she who directed us.”
The suggestion appears sensible to most upon the ground.
They are not cowards.
Still there are but few of them, who have encountered the wild Indian in actual strife; and many only know his more debased brethren in the way of trade.
The advice is adopted.
They stand waiting for the approach of Isidora.
All are now by their horses; and some have sought shelter among the trees. There are those who have an apprehension: that along with the Mexican, or close after her, may still come a troop of Comanches.
A few are otherwise occupied—Zeb Stump among the number. He takes the gag from between the teeth of the respited prisoner, and unties the thongs hitherto holding him too fast.
There is one who watches him with a strange interest, but takes no part in the proceeding.
Her part has been already played—perhaps too prominently.
She shuns the risk of appearing farther conspicuous.
Where is the niece of Don Silvio Mortimez?
She has not yet come upon the ground!
The stroke of her horse’s hoof is no longer heard!
There has been time—more than time—for her to have reached the jacale!
Her non-appearance creates surprise—apprehension—alarm.
There are men there who admire the Mexican maiden—it is not strange they should—some who have seen her before, and some who never saw her until that day.
Can it be, that she has been overtaken and captured?
The interrogatory passes round. No one can answer it; though all are interested in the answer.
The Texans begin to feel something like shame.
Their gallantry was appealed to, in that speech sent them from the cliff,
“Tejanos!
Cavalleros!”
Has she who addressed it succumbed to the pursuer? Is that beauteous form in the embrace of a paint-bedaubed savage?
They listen with ears intent,—many with pulses that beat high, and hearts throbbing with a keen anxiety.
They listen in vain.
There is no sound of hoof—no voice of woman—nothing, except the champing of bitts heard close by their side!
Can it be that she is taken?
Now that the darker design is stifled within their breasts, the hostility against one of their own race is suddenly changed into a more congenial channel. Their vengeance, rekindled, burns fiercer than ever—since it is directed against the hereditary foe.
The younger and more ardent—among whom are the admirers of the Mexican maiden—can bear the uncertainty no longer. They spring into their saddles, loudly declaring their determination to seek her—to save her, or perish in the attempt.
Who is to gainsay them?
Her pursuers—her captors perhaps—may be the very men they have been in search of—the murderers of Henry Poindexter!
No one opposes their intent.
They go off in search of Isidora—in pursuit of the prairie pirates.
Those who remain are but few in number; though Zeb Stump is among them.
The old hunter is silent, as to the expediency of pursuing the Indians.
He keeps his thoughts to himself: his only seeming care is to look after the invalid prisoner—still unconscious—still guarded by the Regulators.
Zeb is not the only friend who remains true to the mustanger in his hour of distress.
There are two others equally faithful.
One a fair creature, who watches at a distance, carefully concealing the eager interest that consumes her.
The other, a rude, almost ludicrous individual, who, close by his side, addresses the respited man as his “masther.”
The last is Phelim, who has just descended from his perch among the parasites of an umbrageous oak—where he has for some time stayed—a silent spectator of all that has been transpiring.
The change of situation has tempted him back to earth, and the performance of that duty for which he came across the Atlantic.
No longer lies our scene upon the Alamo.
In another hour the jacale is deserted—perhaps never more to extend its protecting roof over Maurice the mustanger.
Chapter Sixty Eight. The Disappointed Campaigners.
The campaign against the Comanches proved one of the shortest—lasting only three or four days.
It was discovered that these Ishmaelites of the West did not mean war—at least, on a grand scale.
Their descent upon the settlements was only the freak of some young fellows, about to take out their degree as braves, desirous of signalising the event by “raising” a few scalps, and capturing some horses and horned cattle.