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

by Joseph A. Altsheler

"We must run for it," whispered Breakstone, as they stood among the trees.

"It's too late," said Phil. Warriors with torches had already appeared at either end of the grove, but the light did not yet reach where the two stood in the thick darkness, with the gentle rain sifting through the leaves upon them. Phil saw no chance to escape, because the light of the torches reached into the river bed, and then, like lightning, the idea came to him.

"Look over your head, Bill," he said. "You stand under an Indian platform for the dead, and I under another! Jump up on yours and lie down between the mummies, and I'll do the same here. Take this pistol for the last crisis, if it should come!"

He thrust his pistol into his companion's hand, seized a bough, and drew himself up. Bill Breakstone was quick of comprehension, and in an instant he did likewise. Two bodies tightly wrapped in deerskin were about three feet apart, and Phil, not without a shudder, lay down between them. Bill Breakstone on his platform did the same. They were completely hidden, but the soft rain seeped through the trees and fell upon their faces. Phil stretched his rifle by his side and scarcely breathed.

The medicine dance continued unbroken inside. Okapa, greatest shaman of the Comanches, still stood in the ring watching the circling twelve. The symbols and hieroglyphics painted on his naked body gleamed ruddily in the light of the torches, but the war chief, Black Panther, and the other great war chief, Santana, had gone forth with many good warriors. The single cry had warned them. Sharp eyes had quickly detected the slit in the wall of buffalo skin, and even the littlest Indian boy knew that this was the door by which the captive had passed. He knew, too, that he must have had a confederate who had helped from the outside, but the warriors were sure that they could yet retake the captive and his friend also.

Black Panther, Santana, and a dozen warriors, some carrying torches, rushed into the grove. They ran by the side of the medicine lodge until they came to the slit. There they stopped and examined it, pulling it open widely. They noticed the powerful slash of the knife that had cut through the tough buffalo hide four feet to the ground. Then they knelt down and examined the ground for traces of footsteps. But the rain, the beneficent, intervening rain, had done its work. It had pushed down the grass with gentle insistence and flooded the ground until nothing was left from which the keenest Comanche could derive a clue. They ran about like dogs in the brake, seeking the scent, but they found nothing. Warriors from the river had reported, also, that they saw nobody.

It was marvelous, incomprehensible, this sudden vanishing of the captive and his friend, and the two chiefs were troubled. They glanced up at the dark platforms of the dead and shivered a little. Perhaps the spirits of those who had passed were not favorable to them. It was well that Okapa made medicine within to avert disaster from the tribe. But Black Panther and Santana were brave men, else they would not have been great chiefs, and they still searched in this grove, which was more or less sacred, examining behind every tree, prowling among the bushes, and searching the grass again and again for footsteps.

Phil lay flat upon his back, and those moments were as vivid in his memory years afterward as if they were passing again. Either elbow almost touched the shrouded form of some warrior who had lived intensely in his time. They did not inspire any terror in him now. His enemies alive, they had become, through no will of their own, his protectors dead. He did not dare even to turn on his side for fear of making a noise that might be heard by the keen watchers below. He merely looked up at the heavens, which were somber, full of drifting clouds, and without stars or moon. The rain was gradually soaking through his clothing, and now and then drops struck him in the eyes, but he did not notice them.

He heard the Comanches walking about beneath him, and the guttural notes of their words that he did not understand, but he knew that neither he nor Bill Breakstone could expect much mercy if they were found. After one escape they would be lucky if they met quick death and not torture at the hands of the Comanches. He saw now and then the reflection of the torch-lights high up on the walls of the medicine lodge, but generally he saw only the clouds and vapors above him.

Despite the voices and footsteps, Phil felt that they would not be seen. No one would ever think of looking in such places for him and Breakstone. But the wait was terribly long, and the suspense was an acute physical strain. He felt his breath growing shorter, and the strength seemed to depart from his arms and legs. He was glad that he was lying down, as it would have been hard to stand upon one's feet and wait, helpless and in silence, while one's fate was being decided. There was even a fear lest his breathing should turn to a gasp, and be heard by those ruthless searchers, the Comanches. Then he fell to calculating how long it would be until dawn. The night could not last more than two or three hours longer, and if they were compelled to remain there until day, the chance of being seen by the Comanches would become tenfold greater.