THE TWO MEN SET TO WORK TO BUILD THEIR BREASTWORK.
The instant he adjusted the glass and levelled it at the road, Pike gave vent to an expletive that need not be recorded here, but that indicated in him a most unusual degree of excitement. No wonder. The Tontos were now in plain view—only two miles and a half out there on the plain,—and though they were spread out, as a rule, to the right and left of the road, quite a number of them came jogging along the road itself, and right in the midst of these, led by an Indian in front and guarded by two or three in rear—were the missing mules. Even at that distance Pike could swear to them. On they came, rapidly, relentlessly, well knowing that even if their human prey had escaped them the big wagon must be somewhere about the Pass and loaded still with provisions. Nearer—nearer jogged the leaders; but now the old trooper was carefully studying a dark object on the back of the foremost mule—a pack of some kind—and marvelling what it could be,—wondering, too, what they had done with their prisoner. He was sure they had one as they came along that morning. At last they were within a mile of the heights and the western entrance to the Pass, and now their speed slackened. They began opening out farther and farther to the right and left, and the nearer they came to the foothills the slower and steadier became their advance. The mules and their attendants were kept well in the background and for the life of him Pike could not tell what that queer looking "pack" could be. Slowly, steadily, the Tonto skirmish line came on. Every moment brought them nearer to the mouth of the Pass. The sun was low down in the west and threw long shadows of the approaching foe before them. Little by little, crouching, almost crawling, the more daring spirits among them would give a spring and a rapid run to the front of forty or fifty yards. Evidently they expected to be greeted with a sharp fire somewhere about the Pass, and did not dare push ahead in their usual order. And now they had reached the entrance to the defile. Two or three, as flankers, remained well out to the right and left among the trees; two or three stole cautiously ahead down the road. Pike watched their every move, yet found himself every few seconds fixing his gaze on that foremost mule now placidly cropping the scant herbage while the skirmish line pushed ahead. Presently a signal of some kind was given and repeated. The Indians in charge of the mules hastened with them to the mouth of the Pass, and as they did so, that singular pack came closer under Pike's powerful glass.
"It's their prisoner," he uttered. "They have driven and goaded him until he fainted from exhaustion. Then they had to wait for the mules to be brought up to the hillock—then lashed the poor fellow upon the back of one of them and pushed ahead." For some purpose of their own they were keeping him alive, and death by fearful torture was something to be looked forward to in the near future. The corporal continued to gaze as though fascinated until the leading mule got almost under him, and then he gave a groan of helplessness and misery as he exclaimed, "My God! My God! It's Manuelito!"
CHAPTER VI.
MANUELITO'S FATE.
For ten minutes Pike remained at his post of observation on top of the rock, watching the Indians as they slowly and cautiously moved down the Pass in the direction of the abandoned camp. The children, worn out with their play, and the fatigues of the climb, were sleeping soundly in the little cave on the peak,—Nellie, with her fair head pillowed in patient Kate's lap. Black Jim, too, was lying where the sun shone full upon him, and snoring away as placidly as earlier in the morning.
Kate, far back in the cave, had no idea what was going on in the Pass below; but her soul was still filled with dread and anxiety. The old trooper knew well that just as soon as the Indians came to the wagons and found them abandoned, their first care would be to secure all the plunder from them possible. Then they would probably dispose of Manuelito after their own cruel designs; and then, if darkness did not come on in the meantime, they would probably begin their search for the fugitives. There would be no difficulty to Indian trailers in following their track up the mountain side; of this Pike was well assured. But the wary old trooper had taken the precaution, every time that he and Jim had gone to and from the camp, to take a roundabout path, so as to bring their trail around the base of the mountain in front of the cave, and in this way the Indians in following would come directly in front of their barricade at the mouth and from sixty to a hundred yards down the hill and within easy range and almost sure shot of the defenders.