But the words were hardly out of his pale lips and beginning to inspirit his band as they emerged from the jaws of the long trough before cheers arose behind them. From the high points Ridge and a few Piegans saw a numerous corps of cavalry sweep round from the southeast, clear the spurs of the east bluff, and gallop through the mad root swamp to intercept the flying men.
Nevertheless, good cavaliers as were these Mexicans of Peralta, the treacherous morass soon hampered and terrified the horses, and the troop was thrown into disarray.
This sight warmed the frozen heart of Kidd once more.
"They are only 'greasers,'" cried he, scornfully. "And, after all, better to perish having our revenge on them than waiting for those murderous savages to come up. Who'll come on with me? Won't the fear of hellish torture make any backward spirit brave? For the golden land, right through the yallerfaces! Hurrah, boys!"
Whilst hesitating, two bullets of several shots whistled into the bodies of a pair of his companions. The pursuers had arrived within range. At this, more potent than the harangue, the gold grabbers ran at the heels of their leader, straight along the firm ground forming a natural bridge in the bog, firing at the floundering horsemen and yelling to increase the alarm of the steeds.
Five ran the gauntlet successfully, though each was wounded by the Mexicans' cutlasses, so close were the encounters. But Kidd seemed to bear a charmed life. He turned, his bosom swelling with exultation. All the foes were on the other side of him. The Yellowstone Region was at his foot. Surely in his bounding heart he had not a doubt that he was destined to conceal himself among the wonders in some enchanted cave, in some petrified forest, in some hollow under a waterfall and baffle the Yager of the Yellowstone himself.
Indeed, the trampling horses cut up the quaking morass; black water and yellow slime oozed up and covered the grass. Where the bandits had leaped along the mud rose, or the calamus root was sinking as if pulled down by the hands of elves. The subtle obstacle was mysterious. All the Indians paused on the solid ground, whilst Ridge and the trappers alone were cool enough to assist the Mexicans to where they stood.
To add to the horror, bodies of the Crows slain in the previous battle, till now submerged in the pitchy, sulfurous fen, slowly bubbled up, so besmeared as but dimly to suggest the shapes of men.
Kidd and his companions, among whom was Margottet, the only Half-breed, had impudently stopped, the swamp between. They were the more plainly discernible as at their back the steam from a water volcano formed a white veil.
Suddenly the wind died away. There was audible a mournful, tremendous sound in the haunted realm, like a giant's breathing; it was the pumping underground of the indescribable forces to extract and drive to the surface tons upon tons of water for the colossal hot water fountains, whose heat and moisture tempered the atmosphere even here.