The Young Scout: The Story of a West Point Lieutenant

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

As the lieutenant had stated, Mendez knew and told him that the father would do precisely what he did do, and that, unless he was checked, he would fall a victim to Apache ferocity, without affording the slightest aid to his child. Freeman had made the natural mistake of believing the hostiles would rendezvous at a point much further in advance than they did. Some of their scouts would be there, on the watch for the approach of the whites, and the chance of the father’s circumventing them was as one in a million.

The lieutenant and the scout, having completed all they could do in the way of diverting the suspicion of the Apaches, now gave their whole energy to the help of the stricken parent.

The whole question narrowed down to that of the whereabouts of the captive, and whether it was possible to secure possession of him unharmed. Mendez suspected that Maroz and Ceballos, with probably one or two companions, were at the advanced position referred to, but whether they retained the immediate custody of the child, or had sent him further into the mountains with the main band, or had put him to death, were questions which could be answered only by personal investigation.

The natural conclusion was that the first proceeding of the leaders in the outbreak would be to send the child away from them, not only as a surer means against his recapture, but to leave his abductors untrammeled in their movements. Such, I say, was the natural theory, but the sagacious Mendez saw a reason for hoping that the reverse was the case; in other words, that matters were just as it was desired they should be.

Maroz was irrestrainable in his ferocity when aroused. No crueler savage ever lived. He carried off little Fulton Freeman, because he saw the chance of torturing his parents’ hearts with deeper grief by doing so than by driving a bullet through his brain. He helped to shoot down the children of Captain Murray, because their father and mother fell during the opening of the scrimmage, and, therefore, they could not be distressed further; but he recognized the son of Freeman and saw his opportunity.

To turn the little fellow over to the other Apaches back in the mountains would be to relinquish, for a time at least, control of his fate. There were turbulent spirits with the main band who were likely to insist on their own views as to what should be done with him. It was not improbable that these would conflict with the purposes of Maroz and cause him keen disappointment.

It cannot be denied that this was theorizing matters down to a fine point, but it was the theory upon which Mendez acted in his attempts to help Maurice Freeman in his extremity.

The correctness of his belief in the first instance was proven by his discovery of the white man near where he expected him to be. Not intending to be hampered by the movements of the anxious parent, his first step was to pilot him to a safe point, and leave him in the company of the lieutenant until such time as their services should be needed—a contingency that, as the Apache viewed it, was so remote as to be almost out of sight.

Parting from them, as has been described elsewhere, Mendez began one of the most difficult tasks of his life: it was that of locating not only Maroz and Ceballos, but the young captive. That had to be done before the still harder work of rescuing the little one should be attempted.

It is not worth while to follow the wonderful scout, step by step, in his approach to the camp of the hostiles. It may be described as the absolute perfection of woodcraft—noiseless, unerring, and as direct as that of the bloodhound on the trail of the fugitive. As the gloom closed him in, and the black eyes lost half their function, his advance showed hardly any diminution, for he was never at a loss as to the course to take.