“Three and a tiger for the catamount-chewers; for the rattlesnake-charmers; for the scorpion-eaters; and for the cocks of the walk!” yelled Cimarron Jack, suiting the action (the former one) to the word.
They were given lustily, and the trampled herbage under the ringing hoofs slowly raised to find that the ruthless destroyers were passed on and were rapidly receding from sight.
Two hours later. Now the moon was in the zenith, round, white and gleaming, and the actors in the varying tragedy were passing over a different landscape. The plain, though still level, taken as a whole, was cut into many islands, capes, peninsulas—into all manner of curious shapes by the deceitful ravines and small creeks, called Dead Man’s Gulches.
Winding in and out, slipping, crawling, and at short times and long intervals, trotting, was a serpentine train of dusky forms, twisting and climbing deeper and deeper into the wild and sandy maze.
Ever and anon they looked back, and some grinned sardonically, while others frowned and fingered their tomahawks nervously. They were looking at a small party behind who were just entering the Gulches, a mile away, and who were coming boldly and rapidly on in pursuit.
Unlike the savages they were unincumbered with leading horses, and were able to move much more rapidly. They were also in Indian file and were headed by Simpson, the guide—now a guide in a useful and important sense, for he was acquainted with many (not all, by any means) of the mazes into which they were involving themselves.
“Durn my hide!” he growled, as he mounted an eminence.
“Gee-whiz! what a pile of ’em thar is. Gee-whittaker! ef they’d turn and surround us in these durned gulches what a battue thar’d be. A serround—it’d be the last of every mother’s son of us.”
The guide was losing his taciturnity—a sure sign he was in earnest, and so he was.