"Yes, and white men's clothes on, too. I wonder who he murdered and robbed to get 'em?"
Chapter XVII.
A CHEYENNE WAR-PARTY.
The war-party, detected by the wonderful eyesight of the Cheyenne scout while they were yet miles away from him, had been for more than a week engaged in attacking stages and wagon-trains on the Smoky Hill Trail. Hiding behind some slight elevation, or in a cottonwood thicket near the road, with keen-eyed scouts always on the lookout, they would burst like a whirlwind on their unsuspecting victims, pour in a withering volley of bullets and arrows, and disappear, almost before a return shot could be fired. Sometimes they would maintain a running fight for miles with a stage, their fleet ponies easily keeping pace with its frantic mules, and many a one thus fell into their hands. Its fate was always the same. If any of its defenders survived the fight they were either killed or reserved for the worse fate of captives. Its mail-sacks were ripped open and their contents scattered far and wide. Finally it was set on fire and destroyed.
Sometimes the stages escaped; in which case their passengers had marvellous tales to tell. One of these, that reached the safety of General Lyle's wagon-train just in time to avoid capture, had but one living passenger, a woman who was not even wounded during the almost continuous storm of arrows and bullets of a ten-mile running fight. Four dead men, one of whom was her husband, were inside the coach, and another was on the box with the driver. The latter was wounded, and the mules fairly bristled with arrows. The stage itself was shivered and splintered in every part by the shower of lead that had been poured into it, and many a blood-stained letter from its mail-sacks afterwards carried a shudder into distant Eastern homes.
This, then, was the work of the war-party who were gathered about Glen Eddy; and, even now, they were impatiently awaiting the appearance of the stage from the east that was due that day. For this occasion they had planned a new form of attack. It was not to be made until the stage reached the ranch. There, while its mules were being changed, and its occupants were off their guard, the Indians proposed to dash out from the nearest place of concealment and attempt the capture of both it and the station at the same time. It was a well-conceived plan, and might have been successfully carried out, but for the arrival of the three scouts, who were now so proudly exhibiting their prisoner and telling the story of his capture. Before they had half finished, a few dazzling flashes of light from the mirrors of the distant lookouts announced that the eastern stage was in sight.
A minute later the warriors were mounted and riding cautiously towards a point but a short distance from the ranch, where they could still remain concealed from it until the moment of making their final dash. The three scouts, being on other duty, were not expected to take part in the fight, nor had they any intention of so doing, much as they would have liked to; but they could not resist the temptation to witness it. So they, with their prisoner, followed close behind the others to their new place of concealment. When they reached it, these three, with Glen, stood a little apart from the rest, so as not to interfere with their movements.
Up to this moment, the boy had not the least idea of what was about to take place, nor where he was. There was nothing to indicate that a stage ranch and a well-travelled wagon road lay just beyond the ridge before him. He wondered what these Indians were up to; but he wondered still more when they would go into camp, and give him a chance to dismount from the back of that hard-trotting mule; for his aches and pains had again become very hard to bear. In spite of his thoughts being largely centred upon himself, Glen could not help noticing the uneasy movements of his steed, and his impatient snuffings of the air, that began as soon as they came to a halt. The scouts noticed them, too, and watched the mule narrowly.
Suddenly the animal threw up his great head, and in another instant would have announced his presence to all the country thereabout by a sonorous, far-reaching bray. Before he could open his mouth, however, one of the scouts sprang from his pony and seized him by the nose. In the struggle that followed, the end of the lariat held by Wolf-Tongue was jerked from his hand. At the same moment the mule succeeded in shaking off the scout with such violence that he staggered for nearly a rod before recovering his balance. Then, so quickly that Glen was very nearly flung from his back, the animal sprang to the crest of the little ridge, and dashed, with astonishing speed, towards the corral that had been his home for so long, and which he had scented so plainly the moment he reached its vicinity.