The Great Cattle Trail

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

“They are cattle,” was his conclusion; “a part of the herd has been stampeded, and one of the men is trying to round them up: it was his mustang that I heard––ah! there it goes again!”

It was the crack of a rifle and the screech 146 of a mortally struck person that startled him this time.

“I believe that was a Comanche who has gone down before the rifle of one of our men.”

As the reader is aware, the Texan was correct in every particular, for it was the report of Gleeson’s Winchester, which ended the career of the warrior pressing Avon Burnet so hard, that reached the captain as he lay on the roof of his own dwelling.

The whimsical nature of the wind, that had been blowing all the night, excluded further sounds. The stillness that succeeded seemed so unnatural in its way that it might have alarmed a more superstitious person. Once the faintest possible rumbling of the cattle’s hoofs was detected, but it quickly subsided, and nothing more of the kind was noticeable.

It was clear that the Comanches in the immediate vicinity of the cabin must have noted all that interested the Texan. Whatever the issue of the remarkable meeting on the prairie, there could be no doubt that one of the red men had been laid low. Another had been shot by the captain a short time before, 147 not to mention the other one or two that he believed had fallen.

Thus far, no one of the inmates had been harmed, unless perchance his nephew was overtaken by disaster. Consequently, the game the Comanches were playing, though they did their part with rare skill, was a losing one up to this point.

As the minutes passed, the Texan found himself more hopeful than he had been through the entire evening. He was strong in the belief that Avon had succeeded in reaching the camp of the cattlemen, and that the latter would soon appear on the scene with an emphasis that would scatter his assailants like so much chaff.

The only vulnerable point for fire was on the roof, but the designs of the Indians had been defeated thus far, and he believed they could be stood off indefinitely, at least until the arrival of the cowboys, who would then take charge of business.

The two matters that gave him anxiety were the presence of the warrior below in the cabin, and the probability of himself being 148 struck by some of the bullets that he expected to come scurrying over the planking every minute.