The intelligence, though containing several points but ill understood, was nevertheless a guide to the expeditionary party. It furnished a sort of clue to the direction they ought to take.
If the missing man had gone off with Maurice the mustanger, or after him, he should be looked for on the road the latter himself would be likely to have taken.
Did any one know where the horse-hunter had his home?
No one could state the exact locality; though there were several who believed it was somewhere among the head-waters of the Nueces, on a creek called the “Alamo.”
To the Alamo, then, did they determine upon proceeding in quest of the missing man, or his dead body—perhaps, also, to find that of Maurice the mustanger; and, at the same time, avenge upon the savage assassins two murders instead of one.
Chapter Thirty Nine. The Pool of Blood.
Notwithstanding its number—larger than usual for a party of borderers merely in search of a strayed neighbour—the expedition pursued its way with, considerable caution.
There was reason. The Indians were upon the war-trail.
Scouts were sent out in advance; and professed “trackers” employed to pick up, and interpret the “sign.”
On the prairie, extending nearly ten miles to the westward of the Leona, no trail was discovered.
The turf, hard and dry, only showed the tracks of a horse when going in a gallop.
None such were seen along the route.
At ten miles’ distance from the Fort the plain is traversed by a tract of chapparal, running north-west and south-east. It is a true Texan jungle, laced by llianas, and almost impenetrable for man and horse.
Through this jungle, directly opposite the Fort, there is an opening, through which passes a path—the shortest that leads to the head waters of the Nueces.
It is a sort of natural avenue among the trees that stand closely crowded on each side, but refrain from meeting.
It may be artificial: some old “war-trail” of the Comanches, erst trodden by their expeditionary parties on the maraud to Tamaulipas, Coahuila, or New Leon. The trackers knew that it conducted to the Alamo; and, therefore, guided the expedition into it.
Shortly after entering among the trees, one of the latter, who had gone afoot in the advance, was seen standing by the edge of the thicket, as if waiting to announce some recently discovered fact.
“What is it?” demanded the major, spurring ahead of the others, and riding up to the tracker. “Sign?”
“Ay, that there is, major; and plenty of it.
Look there!
In that bit of sottish ground you see—”
“The tracks of a horse.”
“Of two horses, major,” said the man, correcting the officer with an air of deference.
“True. There are two.”
“Farther on they become four; though they’re all made by the same two horses.
They have gone up this openin’ a bit, and come back again.”
“Well, Spangler, my good fellow; what do you make of it?”
“Not much,” replied Spangler, who was one of the paid scouts of the cantonment; “not much of that; I hav’n’t been far enough up the openin’ to make out what it means—only far enough to know that a man has been murdered.”
“What proof have you of what you say?
Is there a dead body?”
“No.
Not as much as the little finger; not even a hair of the head, so fur as I can see.” “What then?”
“Blood, a regular pool of it—enough to have cleared out the carcass of a hull buffalo.
Come and see for yourself.
But,” continued the scout in a muttered undertone, “if you wish me to follow up the sign as it ought to be done, you’ll order the others to stay back—’specially them as are now nearest you.”
This observation appeared to be more particularly pointed at the planter and his nephew; as the tracker, on making it, glanced furtively towards both.
“By all means,” replied the major. “Yes, Spangler, you shall have every facility for your work.
Gentlemen! may I request you to remain where you are for a few minutes.
My tracker, here, has to go through a performance that requires him to have the ground to himself.
He can only take me along with him.”
Of course the major’s request was a command, courteously conveyed, to men who were not exactly his subordinates.
It was obeyed, however, just as if they had been; and one and all kept their places, while the officer, following his scout, rode away from the ground.
About fifty yards further on, Spangler came to a stand.
“You see that, major?” said he, pointing to the ground.
“I should be blind if I didn’t,” replied the officer. “A pool of blood—as you say, big enough to have emptied the veins of a buffalo.
If it has come from those of a man, I should say that whoever shed it is no longer in the land of the living.”
“Dead!” pronounced the tracker. “Dead before that blood had turned purple—as it is now.”
“Whose do you think it is, Spangler?”
“That of the man we’re in search of—the son of the old gentleman down there.
That’s why I didn’t wish him to come forward.”