The War Trail: The Hunt of the Wild Horse

by Mayne Reid

I waited to hear no more, but leading Moro down the bank, at a place where it sloped, I stepped gently into the current. My well-trained steed followed without hesitation, and in another instant we were both breast-deep in the flood.

The water was just the depth I desired. There was a half-yard of bank that rose vertically above the surface; and this was sufficient to shelter either my own head, as I stood erect, or the frontlet of my horse. Should the channel continue of uniform depth as far as the camp, the approach would be easy indeed: and, for certain hydrographic reasons, I was under the belief it would.

The plumes of the Indian bonnet rose above the level of the meadow-turf; and as the feathers—dyed of gay colours—would have formed a conspicuous object, I took off the gaudy head-dress, and carried it in my hand.

I also raised the robe of jaguar-skin over my shoulders, in order to keep it dry; and for the same reason, temporarily carried my pistols above the water-line.

The making of these slight alterations occupied only a minute or so; and, as soon as they were completed, I moved forward through the water.

The very depth of the stream proved a circumstance in my favour. In wading, both horse and man make less noise in deep than in shallow water; and this was an important consideration. The night was still—too still for my wishes—and the plunging sound would have been heard afar off; but fortunately there were rapids below—just where the stream forced its way through the spur of the hill—and the hissing sough of these, louder in the still night, was borne upon the air to the distance of many miles. Their noise, to my own ears, almost drowned the plashing made by Moro and myself. I had noted this point d’avantage before embarking upon the enterprise.

At the distance of two hundred yards from the bushes, I paused to look back. My purpose was to fix in my memory the direction of the hill, and more especially the point where my comrades had been left in ambush: in the event of a close pursuit, it would not do to mistake their exact situation.

I easily made out the place, and observed that, for several reasons, a better could not have been chosen. The trees that timbered the crest of the hill were of a peculiar kind—none more so upon the earth. They were a species of arborescent yucca, then unknown to botanists. Many of them were forty feet in height; and their thick angular branches, and terminal fascicles of rigid leaves, outlined against the sky, formed a singular, almost an unearthly spectacle. It was unlike any other vegetation upon earth, more resembling a grove of cast-iron than a wood of exogenous trees.

Why I regarded the spot as favourable for an ambush, was chiefly this: a party approaching it from the plain, and climbing the hill, might fancy a host of enemies in their front; for the trees themselves, with their heads of radiating blades, bore a striking resemblance to an array of plumed gigantic warriors. Many of the yuccas were only six feet in height, with tufted heads, and branchless trunks as gross as the body of a man, and they might readily have been mistaken for human beings.

I perceived at a glance the advantage of the position. Should the Indians pursue me, and I could succeed in reaching the timber before them, a volley from my comrades would check the pursuers, however numerous. The nine rifles would be enough, with a few shots from the revolvers. The savages would fancy nine hundred under the mystifying shadows of that spectral-like grove.