Crashing through the brush, stumbling over the rocks, Cassara rushed toward his horse and vaulted into the saddle. His spurs raked the beast’s sides cruelly; with a snort of pain and surprise the animal ran wildly around the butte, sending showers of gravel down into the cañon. The sergeant bent low and gripped the reins, lifting the horse in its great jumps. On and on he rode, circling the knoll so as to approach the house from the opposite side.
He came within view of it—and pulled up his mount sharply. He was too late. Rojerio Rocha was in the centre of a horde of shrieking Indians. They did not pull him from his horse, and they seemed to be making no effort to attack him. But they had turned the animal’s head, and fully two hundred of them were rushing it back toward the houses running alongside, some mounted on ponies and some afoot. In an instant Cassara had judged distance. The Indians were within fifty yards of the adobe buildings, within one hundred yards of the house. And he was fully three hundred yards away.
Sergeant Cassara hesitated a moment. He never knew fear, and was not the sort of man to surrender another man and two women to a savage band without making an effort to rescue them, even if it was certain he would die in the attempt.
But he could not save these people, he knew, and would only lose his own life. And if he died in the patio of the ranch-house at the hands of frenzied gentiles who hated the uniform he wore, there would be none to carry the alarm to the mission.
And now the throng had reached the house and rushed into the patio, Rojerio Rocha still mounted on his horse. A bedlam of shrieks and screams assailed the sergeant’s ears. He thought of the two women who had ridden out in the carreta—the dignified señora, the dimpling señorita—and cursed the man whose obstinacy had brought them there.
“Torture—and worse!” he exclaimed. “May the saints see that this Rojerio Rocha suffers thrice for every bit of pain those women are caused!”
And then he wheeled his horse, sent home the spurs, and dashed down the road toward the distant mission.
The comandante, back from his fruitless search of the hills for Captain Fly-by-Night, saw the flying horse in the distance, caught the glint of sun from the sergeant’s sword and called to his soldiers. Frailes ran to the end of the adobe wall to watch the approaching horseman.
Less than twenty neophytes remained at the mission now—all day they had been sneaking away one at a time and hurrying to the camp on the rancho—and of those who remained it was a question which were loyal.