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

by Joseph A. Altsheler

It was a nice cold spring, rising at the base of a rock, and running away in a tiny stream among the poplars. Phil knelt and drank, and then sat upon an upthrust root. The desire for sleep had left him, and his mind turned upon his great search. He took the paper from the inside pocket of his coat, unfolded it, and smoothed it out with his fingers. It was too dark for him to read it, but he held it there a little while, then folded it up again, and returned it to its resting place. He was about to rise again and return to the camp, but something moved in the thicket. It might have been a lizard, or it might have been the wind, but he was sure it was neither. The sound was wholly out of harmony with the note of the night.

Phil remained sitting on the upthrust root, but leaned against the trunk to which the root belonged. His figure blended darkly against the bark. Only an eye of uncommon acuteness would note him. The slight stirring, so much out of tune with all the wilderness noises, came again, and, despite his strength and will, both of which were great, Phil felt ice pass along his spine, and his hair rose slightly. That uncanny hour at which evil deeds happen held him in its spell. But he did not move, except for the slipping of his hand to the pistol in his belt, and he waited.

Slowly a dark face formed itself in the bushes, and beneath it was the faint outline of a human figure. The face was malignant and cruel, a reddish copper in color, with a sharp, strong chin, high cheek-bones, and black glowing eyes. These eyes were bent in a fierce gaze upon the circle of wagons. They did not turn in Phil's direction at all, but the face held him fascinated.

It seemed to Phil that he had seen that countenance before, and as he gazed he remembered. It was surely that of Black Panther, the Comanche, but what a startling change. The crouching, fuddled lump of a man in tattered clothes, whom he had seen in New Orleans, had been transformed when the breath of the wilderness poured into his lungs. He fitted thoroughly into this dark and weird scene, and the hair on Phil's head rose a little more. Then the head, and the figure with it, suddenly melted away and were gone. There was no strange stirring in the thicket, nothing that was not in accord with the night.

The ice left Phil's spine, the hair lay down peacefully once more on his head, and his hand moved away from the pistol at his belt. It was like a dream in the dark, the sudden appearance of that Medusa head in the bushes, and he was impressed with all the weight of conviction that it was an omen of bad days to come. The wind whispered it, and the quiver in his blood answered. But the men in the train might laugh at him if he told that he had merely seen an Indian's face in the bushes. The thing itself would be slight enough in the telling, and he did not wish to be ridiculed as a boy whose fears had painted a picture of that which was not. But he walked warily back, and he was glad enough when he repassed between two of the wagons, and resumed his old place. Middleton, Arenberg, and Bill Breakstone all slept soundly, and Phil, wrapped in his blanket, sought to imitate them. But he could not. He lay there thinking until the low band of scarlet in the east foreshadowed the day. He rose and looked once more over the camp. The last coal had died, and the dark forms, wrapped in their blankets, looked chill and cold. But the red dawn was advancing, and warmth came with it. One by one the men awoke. The horses stirred. Phil stood up and stretched his arms. Middleton, Bill Breakstone, and Arenberg awoke. They had slept soundly and pleasantly all through the night.

"'Tis a fine couch, this Mother Earth," said Bill Breakstone, "finer than cloth of gold, if it be not raining or snowing, or the winds be not nipping. Then, in such event, I should take the cloth of gold, with a snug tent over it."

"I have slept well, and I awake strong and refreshed," said Arenberg simply. "It iss all I ask of a night."

"I have not slept well," said Phil, "at least I did not during the latter part of the night."

There was a certain significance in his tone, and the others looked at him. Only they were near, and Phil said in a low tone:

"I awoke in the night, and I was restless. I walked down to the spring for a drink, and I saw a face in the bushes, the face of a man who was watching us."