"The paymaster, or the captain?" asked Brooks, his heart beating hard, but his face imperturbable.
"Both, sir, I reckon; one one way and the other the other."
Then Brooks signalled over his shoulder. "We've got to gallop, Barclay. It's neck or nothing now." And some horses even then were drooping at the trot.
Six o'clock now. Six miles from the eastward mouth of the Pass, and spurs were plying here and there throughout the column, for many found their horses lagging sorely. Barclay on his splendid blooded bay was far out to the front, the corporal courier with him, for theirs were the only mounts that could stand another forcing of the pace. Rearward, three or four horses, exhausted, were being gathered up by a burly sergeant, and with their weary riders led slowly along the trail. Six-fifteen:—Barclay and his corporal were but dots along the falda now, and moving swiftly. Then at a higher point, in plain view, one dot began circling to the left at speed. Every man knew what that meant, and the signal was answered by another spurt. The sun was telling at last. The dew had dried, but along the turf there was but little dust to rise, and Brooks could keep most of his men together. Far off to the left, all eyes could see now the sign that told that rival rescuers were gaining. The little squad from the San Saba camp came spurring along the beaten trail, betrayed by the cloud of dust that rose above them. Young Connolly, the guidon-bearer of Barclay's troop, unfurled his color and set it flapping in the rising breeze in trooper challenge; and down the column set and haggard faces lighted up with the gleam of soldier joy. It was to be a race,—a race to the rescue. Six-thirty, and over a low ridge went Brooks and Winn, close followed by their orderlies; far away, midway up the opposite slope, stretched a slender, twisting, traversing seam,—the winding trail to Crockett's. The black dots in the lead were now three in number, darting towards two others, black dots, too, some four miles away and to the right front, right in among the hills. "Keep it up, lads! the quicker to water and rest!" are the major's words now, and spurs set home again, despite equine grunts in protest. Six-forty, and the dots in front are blacker and bigger and popping about, three of them, at least, in lively motion, checking suddenly, then darting to and fro, and the cry bursts from the leader's lips, "By God, they're at it! Now, lads, for all you're worth, come on!" Six-forty-five, and, rounding a projecting spur, a shoulder from the range, Brooks, Winn, and the doctor burst in view of a scene that banishes the last thought of weariness. Barely a mile or so away, a rocky ledge lies beyond and parallel with the trail. Its jagged crest is spitting smoke and fire. Its smoother slopes, towards the east, are dotted in places by the bodies of dead or dying horses, and in places, too, by other, smaller forms, apparently stiff and motionless. Off the trail, as though dragged there by affrighted and agonized animals, lies an overturned ambulance, its six draught-mules outstretched upon the turf about it; so, too, are other quadrupeds, troop-horses evidently. Well back of the ruined wagon, some trusty soul has rallied the remaining troop-horses, while most of their riders, sprawled upon the turf or behind improvised rifle-pits, stick manfully to their duty. "Friday's" ambuscade, in the still hours of the night, has cost the government heavily in horses, men, and mules, but old Pennywise's precious safe is guarded still, and every rush the outlaws make to get it is met by relentless fire. Six-fifty, and, leaving on the field six outlawed forms that will never fight again, the baffled relics of the Fridays are scurrying away into the fastnesses of the range before the labored rush and sputtering fire of Brooks's men, and Galahad, with his corporal comrade, far in the lead, gets the last compliments of the departing gang. Another gallant horse goes down, and Galahad's for the time goes free, his rider falling fainting from exhaustion and loss of blood.
CHAPTER XIII.
Old Frazier's face was sad to see when, two days later, all the harrowing details of that night's work were received at Worth. Hours before, in answer to courier from Crockett's, Dr. Collabone, with steward, attendants, and such ambulances as there were, had been put en route for the Springs. Two other troops had been hurried to the field, and Mrs. Blythe, with streaming eyes, was straining to her heart two motherless children, now orphaned by that "one more square fight in Texas." Gallant Ned Lawrence! Far on the way to Cramer's bewildered force they found his body, shot from ambush through and through in two places. Yet, said his weeping orderly, he had clung to the saddle nearly a mile. Oh, the wrath at Department Head-Quarters and along the line of posts and camps against that gang, made up, as so many knew it must be made, mainly of the thugs and deserters offscoured from the army in days when moral character as vouched for was no requisite before enlistment! Among the dead upon the field was found the body of a once trusted sergeant of Lawrence's troop; but the other outlaws were Mexicans or jailbirds, strange to the soldiers who turned them curiously over. Pennywise, scared half to death and dreadfully shaken by the capsizing of his wagon, was otherwise unscathed; his clerk was shot, his driver sorely wounded; two of the San Saba escort were killed, and others hit. Brooks, with Captain Haines from the San Saba, pushed on until at noon he reached Cramer's people, now reinforced by Fuller and his men and by the shame-stricken Mullane. By nightfall his exhausted horses were drinking their fill from the stream. The two wounded officers, Barclay and Cramer, with half a dozen troopers, were being made as comfortable as possible.
By dawn of the next day Mullane's pleading had overpowered Brooks, whose heart was wrung at the contemplation of such unrequited losses, and, taking Lieutenant Winn and forty troopers with him, the Irish captain, given a chance as he prayed to redeem himself, marched away westward from the cantonment at Crockett's, bent on overtaking the outlaws in the Apache mountains, whither they had gone, burdened by half a dozen wounded, so said the one prisoner, who, unable to bear the torment of jolting along on horseback with an arm bullet-smashed at the elbow, had begged to be left behind. He was a mere boy, whose elder brother had been for years a fugitive from justice and of late a prominent member of the gang, and it was by the side of that mortally wounded ruffian they found the youngster weeping, more from grief than from pain, only a mile away from the scene of the second ambuscade.
Verily the men who planned those death-traps were masters of their villanous trade! "Concentrate all your first shots on the officers," were the instructions; "get them down, and the men will be helpless as sheep." Cramer, his doctor, and his first sergeant had fallen at the first fire, and that little command was paralyzed. Vigilant bushwackers, schooled for years in Indian fighting, watching the Crockett trail against the coming of other leaders, had easily recognized Lawrence as he rode galloping on at the head of his half-dozen, and the "one more square fight" proved but a one-sided affair after all. Poor Ned knew he had his death-wounds at the instant, yet whipped out his revolver and ordered, "Charge!" and charge they did upon the scattering, cowardly crew that fled before them on their fresh horses until the trooper leader tumbled from his saddle, dead without a groan; and then, at safe distance, his assassins turned and jeered their helpless pursuers. How the veterans of "D" Troop clustered about their old-time captain's lifeless form that night, and, weary though they were after forty hours of sleepless chase and scout and battle, implored the major to let them start at once upon the outlaws' trail! The same tactics that had halted Cramer's men and murdered Lawrence had been played on the escort from San Saba. Riddling the ambulance at the first volley, yet in the dim moonlight missing the lieutenant commanding, who happened to be riding at the moment on the flank of his column instead of at the head, the sudden volley felled a sergeant, but left the subaltern full of fight, and he rallied his temporarily stampeded troopers not four hundred yards away, and charged back on the Fridays with a splendid dash that drove them helter-skelter to the rocks. Then, dismounting, he had stood them off superbly until rescue came.