"You have not got her yet, demon!" Don Martial shouted, boldly placing himself before Doña Anita, with a pistol in each hand. "Come and take her."
Rapidly approaching footsteps were heard in the depths of the cavern. The Mexicans were caught between two fires. The Black Bear, with his eye fixed on the Tigrero, watched his every movement. Suddenly he bounded forward like a tiger cat, uttering his war yell. The Tigrero fired both pistols at him and seized him round the waist. The two men rolled on the ground, intertwined like two serpents, while Don Sylva and the peons fought desperately with the other Indians.
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
THE WOOD RANGERS.
We will now return to certain persons of this story, whom we have too long forgotten.
Although the French had remained masters of the field, and succeeded in driving back their savage enemies when they attacked the hacienda upon the Rio Gila, they did not hide from themselves the fact that they did not owe this unhoped for victory solely to their own courage. The final charge made by the Comanches, under the orders of Eagle-head, had alone decided the victory. Hence, when the enemy disappeared, the Count de Lhorailles, with uncommon generosity and frankness, especially in a man of his character, warmly thanked the Comanches, and made the hunters the most magnificent offers. The latter modestly received the count's flattering compliments, and plainly declined all the offers he made them.
As Belhumeur told him, they had no other motive for their conduct than that of helping fellow countrymen. Now that all was finished, and the French would be long free from any attacks on the part of the savages, they had only one thing more to do—take leave of the count so soon as possible, and continue their journey. The count, however, induced them to spend two more days at the colony.
Doña Anita and her father had disappeared in so mysterious a manner, that the French, but little accustomed to Indian tricks, and completely ignorant of the manner of discovering or following a trail in the desert, were incapable of going in search of the two persons who had been carried off. The count, in his mind, had built on the experience of Eagle-head and the sagacity of his warriors to find traces of the hacendero and his daughter. He explained to the hunters, in the fullest details, the service he hoped to obtain from them, and they thought they had no right to refuse it.
The next morning, at daybreak, Eagle-head divided his detachment into four troops, each commanded by a renowned warrior, and after giving the men their instructions, he sent them off in four different directions. The Comanches beat up the country with that cleverness and skill the redskins possess to so eminent a degree, but all was useless. The four troops returned one after the other to the hacienda without making any discovery. Though they had gone over the ground for a radius of about twenty leagues round the colony—though not a tuft of grass or a shrub had escaped their minute investigations—the trail could not be found. We know the reason—water alone keeps no trace. Don Sylva and his daughter had been carried down with the current of the Rio Gila.