A Novel Mode of Equitation.
When consciousness returned, I found that I was lying on the ground, and my dog, the innocent cause of my captivity, was licking my face. I could not have been long senseless, for the savages were still gesticulating violently around me. One was waving them back. I recognised him. It was Dacoma!
The chief uttered a short harangue that seemed to quiet the warriors. I could not tell what he said, but I heard him use frequently the word Quetzalcoatl. I knew that this was the name of their god, but I did not understand, at the time, what the saving of my life could have to do with him.
I thought that Dacoma was protecting me from some feeling of pity or gratitude, and I endeavoured to recollect whether I had shown him any special act of kindness during his captivity. I had sadly mistaken the motives of that splendid savage.
My head felt sore. Had they scalped me? With the thought I raised my hand, passing it over my crown. No. My favourite brown curls were still there; but there was a deep cut along the back of my head—the dent of a tomahawk. I had been struck from behind as I came out, and before I could fire a single bullet.
Where was Rube? I raised myself a little and looked around. He was not to be seen anywhere.
Had he escaped, as he intended? No; it would have been impossible for any man, with only a knife, to have fought his way through so many. Moreover, I did not observe any commotion among the savages, as if an enemy had escaped them. None seemed to have gone off from the spot. What then had—? Ha! I now understood, in its proper sense, Rube’s jest about his scalp. It was not a double-entendre, but a mot of triple ambiguity.
The trapper, instead of following me, had remained quietly in his den, where, no doubt, he was at that moment watching me, his scapegoat, and chuckling at his own escape.
The Indians, never dreaming that there were two of us in the cave, and satisfied that it was now empty, made no further attempts to smoke it.
I was not likely to undeceive them. I knew that Rube’s death or capture could not have benefited me; but I could not help reflecting on the strange stratagem by which the old fox had saved himself.