Captain Fly-by-Night

by Johnston McCulley

The Indian’s face disappeared again, the caballero heard the slipping steps retreating, another fragment of language, and then silence except for the rushing wind and the roaring creek.

For half an hour he waited, smiling, fumbling at his pistol, listening, and then he got up and stepped away from the bed of coals to be swallowed up in the darkness. He was taking no chances with the unknown, however. Step by step, and silently, he made a wide circle and approached the teepee. Standing beside it he listened intently, but heard nothing.

Before the crude habitation was a heap of dry grass and wood, as the Indian had said. He sent sparks flying among the fuel, fanned them to a blaze, and waited back in the darkness a few minutes longer. Then he hurried forward and threw back the skins from the door of the teepee.

The work had been well done. Boughs were on the ground, skins spread upon them. In a corner was a jug of wine, another of water, a quarter of mutton, a quantity of wheat-paste. Two rabbits, skinned and cleaned and spread on forked sticks, were beside the mutton. A dirty, ragged blanket, folded, was against the wall.

There was no fear of treachery in the heart of the caballero now. As quickly as possible he got his cloak, sword and guitar, and carried them into the teepee; he found grain and hay where the Indians had left them—near the fire—and carried a generous amount to his horse. Then he returned to the teepee, threw himself upon the blanket facing the fire, and slept.

Slept—and awoke to find the bright sun beating down upon his face, that the creek had fallen until it was scarcely more than its normal size, that neophytes and frailes were at work again repairing the base of the abode wall, and that now and then one of them looked with wonder at the teepee that had been pitched during the night.

“Curiosity will do them good,” the caballero mused.

It was a royal meal he prepared that bright morning. Steaks of mutton, one of the rabbits he broiled over a bed of coals, cakes of wheat-paste were made, and, sitting out where all could see, the caballero ate his fill and washed down the food with wine so rich and rare that he knew no Indian had taken it from his own store. It was good mission wine such as no Indian possessed unless he had purloined it in a raid.

He stretched a skin and poured half the water on it for the horse, for that in the creek was not yet fit for drinking. He gave the animal another measure of grain and wiped his coat smooth with a skin, and polished the silver on saddle and bridle, singing as he worked so that his voice carried to the plaza.

At an early hour he observed a neophyte ride away in the direction of the presidio, to return within a short time with the comandante. In the plaza the officer held a consultation with a fray, looking often at the teepee down by the creek, and then the man in uniform stalked down the slope, swaggering and twirling his moustache. The caballero arose as the other approached.