The Quest of the Four: A Story of the Comanches and Buena Vista

by Joseph A. Altsheler

"It was a great battle!" said Phil, with a look of pride.

"And a great victory!" said Middleton, he, too, although older, feeling that flash of pride.

Phil was glad enough now to seek sleep. The nervous excitement that kept him awake and alert was all gone. He remembered the fire beside which Bill Breakstone and Arenberg slept, and made his way back there. Neither had moved a particle. They still lay with their heads on their elbows, and they drew long, deep breaths with such steadiness and regularity that apparently they had made up their minds to sleep for years to come. Four other men lay near them in the same happy condition.

"Six," said Phil. "Well, the fable tells of the Seven Sleepers, so I might as well complete the number."

He chose the best place that was left, secured his blanket from his saddlebow, wrapped himself thoroughly in it, and lay down with his feet to the fire. How glorious it felt! It was certainly very cold in the Pass of Angostura. Ice was forming, and the wind cut, but there was the fire at his feet and the thick blanket around him. His body felt warm through and through, and the hard earth was like down after such a day. Now victory came, too, with its pleasantest aroma. Lying there under the stars, he could realize, in its great sense, all that they had done. And he had borne his manly part in it. He was a boy, and he had reason for pride.

Phil stared up for a little while at the cold stars which danced in the sky, myriads of miles away, but after awhile his glance turned again toward the earth. The other six of the seven sleepers slept on, not stirring at all, save for the rising and falling of their chests, and Phil decided that he was neglecting his duty by failing to join them at once in that vague and delightful land to which they had gone.

He shut his eyes, opened them once a minute or two later, but found the task of holding up the lids too heavy. They shut down again, stayed down, and in two minutes the six sleepers had become the seven.

Phil slept the remainder of the night as heavily as if he had been steeped in some eastern drug. He, too, neither moved hand nor foot after he had once gone to oblivion. The fire burned out, but he did not awake. He was warm in his blanket, and sleep was bringing back the strength that body and mind had wasted in the day. It was quiet, too, on the battlefield. The surgeons still worked with the wounded, but they had been taken back in the shelter of the pass, and the sounds did not come to those on the plateau. Only the wind moaned incessantly, and the cold was raw and bitter.

About half way between midnight and morning Bill Breakstone awoke. He merely opened his eyes, not moving his body, but he stared about him in a dim wonder. His awakening had interrupted a most extraordinary dream. He had been dreaming that he was in a battle that had lasted at least a month, and was not yet finished. Red strife and its fierce emotions were still before him when he awoke. Now he gazed all around, and saw only blackness, with a few points of light here and there.

His eyes, growing used to the darkness, came back, and he saw six stiff figures stretched on the ground in a row, three on each side of him. He looked at them fixedly and saw that they were the figures of human beings. Moreover, he recognized two of them, and they were his best friends. Then he remembered all about the battle, the great struggle, how the terrible crisis came again and again, how the victory finally was won, and he was glad that these two friends of his were alive, though they seemed to be sleeping as men never slept before.