The sentinels on duty at the grove detected more than once through the night the Comanches prowling around the encampment; but they evidently saw enough to convince them that it wouldn’t pay to disturb the sleepers, and so they slept on, on, till the bright summer sun pierced the camp, and all was active again. Then, as the preparations were made for resuming the journey to Fort Adams, and a careful reconnaissance of the surrounding prairie was made, not a shadow of a red-skin could be seen.
“I was in hopes that I could get a crack at Swico,” remarked Lightning Jo, as he rode at the head of the company, with Egbert Rodman and Lizzie Manning by his side, he insisting upon her keeping him company when no danger was thereby incurred, as he declared there was no telling when such an opportunity would be given him again, and, as a matter of course, she was only too happy to comply with his wishes.
“I was saying that I had hopes of getting even with Swico, and he and me have an account that must be squared one of these days, but I wasn’t given the chance to draw a bead on his shadow. Howsumever, we’ll get square one of these days, as my uncle used to remark when he cheated me out of my last cent, and then kicked me out doors when I asked him for a trifle. They’ve got some purty big devils among the Comanches, but I think Swico goes ahead of ’em all. Do you know what sort of ornament he has made for himself, and which he thinks more of than any thing he ever had?”
The two replied that they had never heard mention of it.
“He wears a shirt of buck-skin, made without the usual ornaments of beads and porcupine-quills, but hung with a full, long fringe formed from the hair of white women and children! You needn’t look so horrified,” the scout hastened to add, as he noted the expression upon the faces of his friends. “I’ve sent word to Swico that him and me could never square accounts till I got hold of that same thing, and I never can get hold of it till I wipe the owner out, so you can see how that thing has got to be settled atween us.”
“And if you hadn’t come to Dead Man’s Gulch as you did, that fringe would have been ornamented with my tresses,” said Lizzie, looking with an awed, grateful look at her preserver.
“I s’pose,” was the matter-of-fact reply; “the old scamp was expecting me, and I wonder that he waited. But he sloped when some of his scouts sent him word that we was coming. Howsumever, what’s the use of talking? I don’t see as you’ve got any reason to think any thing about him.”
“Where do you suppose this Comanche chief and his band are now?” inquired Egbert.
“Off over the prairie somewhere, looking for more women and children. That’s his forte, as they say down in Santa Fe, and I rather reckon that there are plenty more in the same boat with him.”