Just as the sun reached meridian, the two hunters came upon that place known as Devil's Pass, which they were certain had witnessed a fearful tragedy during the previous twenty-four hours.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CAVALRY ESCORT.
The stage which left Santa Fe on that beautiful spring morning, bound for Fort Havens on the journey heretofore referred to, carried two passengers. One was Corporal Hugg, a soldier who had been engaged a dozen years upon the plains—a rough, good-natured, chivalrous fellow, who, having lost a leg in the service of his country, enjoyed a pension, and had become a sort of family servant in the employ of Colonel Chadmund. He was devotedly attached to little Ned and his greatest delight was in watching or joining him at play, exercising a surveillance over him something like that which a great, shaggy Newfoundland holds over a pet child. The corporal was able to stump about upon his cork leg, and when the time came for the lad to make the journey through the mountains to Fort Havens—a journey which he had been looking impatiently forward to for fully a year—it followed as a natural sequence that the corporal should bear him company.
Ned bade his mother an affectionate good-bye, and she pressed him to her breast again and again, the tears filling her eyes, and a sad misgiving chilling her heart. The reports at the time were that the Indians to the southwest were unusually quiet, no word having yet reached the capital of New Mexico of the formidable raids that were being organized in the Apache country. Besides this, the stage, which was properly an ambulance, drawn by a single powerful horse, was escorted by twelve Indian fighters armed to the teeth, every one of whom had performed similar duty before, and so, according to all human probabilities, there seemed to be less cause than usual for fear. Yet the mother felt a woeful sinking of the heart, natural, perhaps, under the circumstances; but she could not break the promise of herself and husband to the boy, who was overflowing with joy at the prospect of that long journey through the mountains, and a several months' sojourn at the fort in the far Southwest.
Finally, the cavalcade lost sight of Santa Fe, and the first night they encamped a good distance away from that historic, then primitive, town. The lieutenant who had charge of the escort was more concerned about the treasure in their possession than he was about the Indians. So far as possible, the fact that he was carrying a large sum of money to one of the frontier posts had been kept a secret from the general public; but he was apprehensive that they might be followed by some of the desperate characters which infested Santa Fe at that time. But nothing of danger or lawlessness was seen during their first day and night, and when they resumed their journey on the morrow, they began to dismiss all thoughts of danger from that direction.
As they progressed toward Arizona, the country gradually grew wilder and more rugged, but the trail was followed without trouble, and when they encamped the second night, they had the satisfaction of reflecting that they had progressed much further than they had counted upon at first.
Those were days of delight and happiness to young Ned Chadmund. The weather was not oppressively warm, and the ever-changing scenery was like the most entrancing panorama passing before his eyes. Sometimes he rode upon one of the horses with the lieutenant or one of the soldiers. Then again he ran along-side the ambulance until he was tired, when he climbed within, and seated himself beside Corporal Hugg, and listened to his tales of battle and adventures.
On the second day the Indians began to show themselves. A party of horsemen would be seen upon the top of some hill or bluff, apparently contemplating the little cavalcade, or they would circle around at a distance upon the prairie, whooping and indulging in all sorts of tantalizing gestures, in the hope of drawing out a portion of the party in pursuit. Their hearts' delight would have been to get them into some exposed position, where they could be cut off to a man—and had the cavalry been unaccustomed to border life, the artifice would have succeeded; but they were not to be seduced to their ruin by any such transparent stratagem.