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

by Joseph A. Altsheler

"Phil," he said, "I'll take the rifle, and you go to sleep. You've had a harder time than I have, and, when you wake up, I'll tell you how I was captured."

"I think I'll do it, Bill," said the boy, putting his. arm under his head and closing his eyes. The strain was gone from his nerves now, and sleep came readily. In three minutes he was oblivious of Comanches and all else that the world contained. Bill Breakstone could have slept if he had tried, but he did not try. Under a manner nearly always light and apparently superficial he concealed a strong nature and much depth of feeling. It seemed to him that at the last moment a hand had been stretched out to save him from the worst of fates. It seemed to him, also, that it must have been a sort of inspiration, the direction of a supreme will, for Phil to have come to him at such a time. It was a brave deed, a wonderful deed, and it had been brilliantly successful.

The light was strong, and Bill Breakstone looked down at the boy who was a younger brother to him now. He saw that the strain upon Phil had been great. Even while he slept his face was very white, except where fatigue and suspense had painted it black beneath the eyes. Phil Bedford had done more than his share, and it was now for him, Bill Breakstone, to do the rest. He slipped the muzzle of the rifle forward in order that it might command the mouth of the hollow, and waited. He would have pulled more leaves and brush before the entrance, but he knew that any disturbance of nature would attract the eye of a passing Comanche, and he allowed everything to remain exactly as it had been.

He lay comfortably among the leaves, and for a long time he did not stir. Phil breathed regularly and easily, and Bill saw that he would be fully restored when he awoke. Bill himself thought neither of hunger nor thirst, the tension was too great for that, but he never ceased to watch the sweep of trees and brush. It was half way toward noon when he saw some bushes about ten yards in front of him trembling slightly. He became at once alert and suspicious. He drew himself up in the attitude of one who is ready for instant action, slipping the muzzle of the rifle a little farther forward.

The bushes moved again, and something came into view. Bill Breakstone sank back, and his apprehension departed. It was a timber wolf, gray and long. A dangerous enough beast, if a man alone and unarmed met a group of them, but Bill, with the rifle, had no fear. The wolf sniffed the odor of flesh, sniffed again, knew that it was the odor of human flesh, and his blood became afraid within him. Bill Breakstone laughed quietly, but the boy slept placidly on. The incident amused Bill, and, therefore, it was welcome. It broke the monotony of the long quiet, and, just when he was laughing noiselessly for the fourth time over the wolf's discomfiture, the bushes moved again. Bill, as before, slipped the muzzle of his rifle farther forward and waited. A slight pungent odor came to his nostrils. The bushes moved more than before, although without noise, and a great yellow body came into view. The eyes were green, the claws sharp and long, and the body lithe and powerful. It was a splendid specimen of the southwestern puma, a great cat that could pull down a deer. But Bill Breakstone was still unafraid. He raised the rifle and aimed it at the puma, although he did not press the trigger.

"I can kill you, my friend, with a single bullet," he murmured, "but the report of that rifle would probably bring the Comanches upon us. Therefore, I will look you down."

The puma paused in doubt and indecision, restlessly moving his tail, and staring with his great green eyes until they met the gray eyes of the human creature, looking down the sights of the rifle barrel. That steady, steel-like gaze troubled the puma. He was large and powerful. He could have struck down the man at a single blow, but the heart within that mass of bone and muscle became afraid. The green eyes looked fearfully into the gray ones, and at last turned aside. The great beast turned stealthily, and slid into the thicket, at first slowly, and then in a run, as the terror that he could not see crowded upon his heels.

Bill Breakstone had laughed several times that morning, but now he laughed with a deep unction.

"I'm proud of myself," he murmured. "It's something to outlook a panther, but I don't know that I'd have looked so straight and hard if I hadn't had the rifle ready, in case the eyes failed. Now I wonder who or what will be the next invader of our premises."

His wonder lasted only until noon, when the sun was poised directly overhead, and the open spaces were full of its rays. Then, as light as the beasts themselves had been, two Comanches walked into full view. Bill Breakstone was as still as ever, but his hand lay upon the trigger of the rifle.