The men knew well enough that just here the pool was but five feet deep at the very most, and three of them ran through it. Mason took out his watch, and, just after the final second had expired, a whistle was heard ahead. The main trail had been found. With their guns held high above their heads, the Yankees slid down the bank and crossed the water, and the double began again.
“Without they’ve got horses waiting for ’em, this looks like a ‘find,’” said Mason over his shoulder. “We shall come slap on to the prairie this way; and that’s as level as a billiard-table for nigh on ten miles; 162 and we’ve gained a rare big pull in crossing the pond.”
It was as he had said; in about another half-hour the forest came to an abrupt end.
“There they go,” shouted one excitable man; and this time a cheer rose from the sailors. The Indians, twelve of them, were scarcely a mile away, walking and running by turns, and to all appearances beginning to knock up, though they made a fresh spurt at sight of their pursuers.
The lieutenant now felt himself in a difficult position. These trappers had seen two of their friends shot down—perhaps killed—only an hour or so ago; and, though the average man of Anglo-Saxon blood (save him of cheap and nasty melodrama) is far too manly a fellow to be able to nourish revenge for an indefinite period, he may be a dangerous customer while the memory of a grievance is still fresh. Wise badly wanted the fugitives’ muskets; he wanted to arrest the owners of them; if need were, to hang them, in requital of their murderous attack; but he did not want to see them riddled with bullets and hacked with bowie-knives by men wild with passion.
“I think you’d better leave this to us now,” he whispered to Mason, who was a man open to reason. The old trapper shook his head, however.
“I wish I could,” he said, “but it’s no use trying. They’ve got a good many old scores against the varmints, and this one coming atop—Wal!”
“Then it’s going to be a race,” said the lieutenant, with decision; and he bade his men quicken their double, in the faint hope of their being able to outrun 163 the trappers. But, as things turned out, the difficulty was removed from his hands. For some few minutes he had noticed a thick mass of moving figures across the plain some distance farther to the left than the point for which the Indians were making. At first he had taken them for cattle; but, on closer inspection, he saw that they were mounted men. He pointed them out to Mason, who was now twenty yards behind.
“Yes; I see ’em,” he shouted. “It’s a battle; Comanches and Apaches, I count.”
In the sailors’ excitement they almost forgot the objects of their pursuit, though these were again showing unmistakable signs of breaking down.