“Leave aside arms, all—guns, and spears!” commands the chief. “Get ready the riatas!”
All together drop down from their horses, those who carry spears sticking them upright in the ground, those with firelocks laying them along it. Any impedimenta of baggage and accoutrements are also pulled off and flung beside. Then they vault back upon their animals, each with but his trail-rope carried in coil over the left arm, to be used as a lazo.
Thus disencumbered and equipped, they at length advance, not for the camp, but the caballada; but ere they can close up the mouth of the cove the white men’s animals become more affrighted than ever, and make the burst they had been threatening—horses, mules, and oxen all together. With a noise of thunder, the ground echoes the tread of their hundreds of hooves, as in frenzied madness they rush out for the open plain. Little chance would there be of their reaching it but that the Indian horses catch the stampede, too, many of them becoming unmanageable. The enfilading line is broken, and through its riven ranks the camp animals sweep as a hurricane. One is in the lead—a large horse, coal-black, on whom many an Indian had set eye, with lazo ready for his capture. Crusader it is, his neigh heard above all others, as, with head on high, mane tossed, and tail streaming afar, he dashes at the severed line; again uttered, as it were exultingly, when, having cleared it, he sees no enemy before him. Half a dozen nooses are flung at and after him, all ill-directed; all fall short, and slide from his glistening flanks, while as many disappointed cries follow him in chorus.
All is scamper and confusion now; the surround has failed, the stampede taken place, and the stampeded animals, such as succeeded in getting off—for not all went clear—can only be captured after a chase. But the Indian horses quickly get over their scare, and are laid on the pursuit till a stream of them stretches out on the llano. Fresher and in better condition than the camp animals, these are soon overtaken and noosed, now one, now another, till at length only a single horse is seen beyond the pursuing line.
Followed still, but so far beyond it, at each bound widening the distance, that a pair of eyes watching the chase, at first apprehensively, now sparkle with delight. For they are the eyes of his own master, Henry Tresillian, standing on the mesa’s summit behind a screening tree.
Half a score of the savages still continue the pursuit, among them their chief himself. For he would give much to be the owner of that matchless steed, and now strains his own to the utmost. All in vain. Crusader forges farther and farther away, till he is but a speck upon the plain. Then the baffled pursuers, one after another, give up discouraged, at length El Cascabel also coming to a stop, and turning to ride back with an air of angry disappointment.
The English youth, yielding to a thrill of proud exultation, waves his cap in the air, giving utterance to a triumphant “Hurrah!”
“I’m so glad he’s got away from them,” he says, to Vicente, by his side; “wherever he may go or whatever become of him. My noble Crusader! But wasn’t it clever? Wasn’t it grand?”
“Wonderful!” responds the gambusino, alike moved to admiration. “I never saw horse behave so in all my born life. Santissima! he must be a witch, if not the demonio himself.”