CHAPTER 12

Pilchuck’s band contained fifty-two men, most of whom owned, or had borrowed Creedmoor Sharps 45-caliber rifles for this expedition. These guns were more reliable and of longer range than the big fifties. Each man took at least two hundred loaded cartridges. Besides that, reloading tools and extra ammunition were included in the supplies. Four wagon loads of food and camp equipment, grain for horses, and medical necessities, were taken in charge of the best drivers.

This force was divided into three companies–one of twenty men under Pilchuck, and two, of sixteen men each, under old buffalo-hunters. This was to facilitate camping operations and to be in readiness to split into three fighting groups.

Tom Doan was in Pilchuck’s company, along with Stronghurl, Burn Hudnall, Ory Tacks, Starwell, Spades Harkaway, the Indian called Bear Claws, Roberts, and others whom Tom knew. There were at least eight or ten hunters, long used to the range, and grim, laconic men who would have made any fighting force formidable.

Pilchuck, Bear Claws, Starwell, and Tom formed an advance guard, riding two miles ahead of the cavalcade. Both the scout and Starwell had powerful field-glasses. The rear guard consisted of three picked men under Harkaway. The route lay straight for the Staked Plain and was covered at the rate of fifteen miles a day. At night a strong guard was maintained.

On the fourth day the expedition reached the eastern wall of the Staked Plain, a stark, ragged, looming escarpment, notched at long distances by canyons, and extending north and south out of sight. This bold upheaval of rock and earth now gave at close hand an inkling of the wild and inhospitable nature of the Staked Plain.

The tracks of Hudnall’s wagon led into a deep-mouthed canyon down whose rugged bottom poured a clear stream of water. Grass was abundant. Groves of cottonwood trees filled the level benches. Game of all kinds abounded in these fastnesses and fled before the approach of the hunters. Before noon of that day a small herd of buffalo, surprised in an open grassy park, stampeded up the canyon, completely obliterating the wagon tracks Pilchuck was following, and all other signs of the Comanches.

This flight of the buffalo, on the other hand, helped to make a way where it was possible to get the four wagons of supplies up on the Staked Plain. Many horses and strong hands made short work of this labor.

Tom Doan gazed in fascination at the wild, strange expanse before him, the Staked Plain, which though notorious of reputation, was so little known. He had expected to find it a gray level plain of sand. Sand there was, assuredly, but many other things at the same time, as appeared manifest in the sand dunes and bluffs and the ragged irregular brakes, and patches of grass, and wide areas of brush. In Tom’s opinion, hunting Indians up there was indeed the wild- goose chase which the expedition had been stigmatized by many of the hunters who had remained behind.

Nevertheless, the Mexican scout led straight to the spot where there had recently been a large encampment of Comanches. They had been gone for days, no doubt having gotten wind of the campaign against them. The tracks of Hudnall’s wagon were found again.

As it was now late in the day, camp was pitched here, with the three forces of hunters close together. By dark, supper was finished, the horses were picketed and herded, guards were on duty, and Pilchuck was in council with his two scouts and the more experienced of his men. It was decided to hold that camp for the next day, and send out detachments with the scouts to try and locate the Comanches.

Round the camp fire that night Tom made the further acquaintance of Spades Harkaway, and found him an unique character, reticent as to himself, but not unwilling to talk about Texas, the buffalo, and the Indians. He had twice crossed the Staked Plain from its western boundary, the Pecos River, to the headwaters of the Brazos on the east.

“Thet name Llano Estacado means Staked Plain,” said the Texan. “It comes from the early days when the Spanish Trail from Santa Fe to San Antone was marked by ‘palos,’ or stakes. There was only two trails across in them days an’ I reckon no more now. Only the Indians know this plain well an’ they only run in heah to hide awhile. Water an’ grass are plentiful in some parts, an’ then there’s stretches of seventy miles dry an’ bare as a bone. Reckon aboot some of the wildest an’ roughest holes in Texas are up heah, as shore you-all will find oot.”

Harkaway claimed the Llano Estacado was shaped like a ham, with a north- to-south trend, about four hundred miles long, and more than half as much wide. It was a tableland, resembling more the Russian steppes than the other upland districts known in the West. Its height above the prairie was perhaps a thousand feet. Some of its most pronounced characteristics, that had helped to make its ill fame, were enumerated and described by the Texan as tremendous obstacles to overcome on an expedition like Pilchuck’s.

“Thar’s bare patches too big to see across,” he specified, “an’ others growed over with mesquite so thick thet ridin’ it is impossible. Thar’s narrow deep canyons thet can only be crossed in places miles apart. Then I’ve seen, myself, canyons thet opened out wide an’ full of jumbles of broken cliff, where no man could go.”

Higher up on the Staked Plain there were levels of a hundred miles in length, like a gravel floor, treeless, grassless, waterless, where the wind swept all before it. There were zones where ponds of water lay at times, a few of them permanent, sulphurous, or salty, and at dry seasons unfit to drink for man or beast. Near the southern end of this strange steppe was a belt of glistening white sand dunes, many miles wide, impassable for a horse, and extremely perilous for a man. Not, however, from lack of water! For here the singular nature of the Staked Plain was more than unusually marked. Permanent ponds lined by reeds and rushes existed in the very region of sand dunes. Along the whole eastern escarpment of the Staked Plain, for three hundred miles, the bold rock rim was cut and furrowed by the streams that had their sources in this mysterious upland.

Late next day the Mexican scout returned with the information that he had found the main encampment of the Comanches. He had been on a reconnoiter alone. Bear Claws and Pilchuck, who had essayed to follow the tracks of Hudnall’s wagon, had actually lost all sign of them. For miles they had trailed the marks of the iron-shod wheels over an area of hard-packed gravel, only to lose them further on in tough, short, springy grass that after the recent rain left no trace.

“The Indian says he can find the wagon tracks by making a wide circle to get off the grass,” Pilchuck informed Starwell, “but that might take days. Besides, the Indians sent the wagon off their main trail. Reckon they expected pursuit. Anyway, we’ll not risk it.”

When Pilchuck made this decision he did not yet know that the Mexican had located the Comanches. Upon consulting with him the information came out that a large band of Indians had been encamped in a canyon, and undoubtedly their lookouts had seen him.

This was verified next day, after a hard ride. An Indian band, large enough to have hundreds of horses, had hastily abandoned the encampment in the canyon and had climbed up on the plain, there to scatter in all directions. Plain trails were left in several cases, but these Bear Claws would not pay any attention to. The Mexican sided with him. They concentrated on dimmer trails over harder ground to follow.

It was after dark when Pilchuck and his men got back to camp, hungry and weary from a long day in the saddle. Next morning camp was moved ten miles to the west, to a secluded spot within easy striking distance of the place where Bear Claws had left off trailing the night before.

That day the Osage Indian lost track of the Comanches for the reason that the trail, always dim, finally vanished altogether. Three days more of searching the fastnesses within riding distance of this camp availed nothing. Camp had to be moved again, this time, at the Indian’s suggestion, across the baffling stretch of plain to a wild and forbidding chaos of ruined cliffs, from which center many shallow canyons wandered for some leagues.

“Reckon we’ve got to rely on our field-glasses to see them before they see us,” said Pilchuck.

When the sun rose high enough next morning to burn out the shadows Pilchuck stood with his scouts and some of his men on the crest of the rocky wilderness.

“Shore that’s a hole!” he ejaculated.

Far and wide heaved the broken billows of gray rock, like an immense ragged sea, barren, monotonous, from which the heat veils rose in curtains. Here and there a tufted cedar raised its dwarfed head, but for the most part there was no green to break the stark nudity. Naked eyes of white men could only see the appalling beauty of the place and enable the mind to grasp the deceiving nature of its distance, size and color. Pilchuck took a long survey with his field-glass.

“Reckon all them meanderin’ gorges head in one big canyon way down there,” he said, handing the glass to Starwell.

“I agree with you, an’ I’m gamblin’ the Comanches are there,” replied Starwell, in turn handing the glass to the man nearest him.

Tom had a good look at that magnified jumble of rocks and clefts, and the wonder of its wildness awed and thrilled him.

Standing next to Tom was Bear Claws, the Osage Indian, and so motionless, so striking was he as he gazed with dark, piercing eyes across the void, that Tom marveled at him and felt the imminence of some startling fact. Pilchuck observed this, also, for as he stood behind the Indian he watched him steadily.

Bear Claws was over six feet tall, lithe, lean, erect, with something of the look of an eagle about him. His bronze, impassive face bore traces of vermilion paint. Around his neck was the bear-claw necklace from which the hunters had nicknamed him. In the back of his scalp-lock, a twisted knot of hair, he had stuck the tail feathers of a prairie bird. Bright bracelets of steel shone on his wrists. He was naked to his beaded and quilled breech- clout.

“Me,” he grunted, reaching for Pilchuck’s field-glass, without taking his fixed gaze from what held him. With both hands then he put the glass to his eyes.

“Ugh!” he exclaimed, instantly.

It was a moment of excitement and suspense for the watching men. Pilchuck restrained Starwell’s impatience. Tom felt a cold ripple run over his body, and then as the Indian said, “Comanches!” that ripple seemed suddenly to be strung with fire. He thought of Milly Fayre.

Bear Claws held the glass immovable, with stiff hand, while he stepped from behind it, and drew Pilchuck to the exact spot where he had stood. His long-reaching arm seemed grotesque while his body moved guardedly. He was endeavoring to keep the glass leveled at the exact spot that had held him.

Pilchuck fastened hard down on the glass, that wavered slightly and then gradually became still. To the watching men he evidently was an eternity. But at last he spoke: “By thunder! he’s right. I can just make out…Indians on trail–goin’ down–head of that canyon all these rock draws run into… Starwell, take a look… Hold there, over that first splinter of cliff, in a line with the high red bluff–an’ search at its base.”

Other glasses were now in use and more than one of the hunters caught a glimpse of the Comanches before they disappeared.

A council was held right there. The distance was approximately ten miles, yet incredibly the Osage Indian had seen something to make him take the field- glass and verify his wonderful keenness of vision. The Mexican scout knew the topography of the rough rock waste and guaranteed to place Pilchuck’s force within striking distance of the Comanches by dawn next day.

Thereupon the hunters retraced their steps from that high point and returned to camp. Pilchuck took the scouts to search for a well-hidden pocket or head of a box canyon where wagons and horses not needed could be concealed to advantage and protected by a small number of men. This was found, very fortunately, in the direction of the Indian encampment, and several miles closer. The move was made expeditiously before dark.

“Reckon this is pretty good,” said Pilchuck, with satisfaction. “We’re far enough away to be missed by any scout they send out to circle their camp. That’s an old Indian trick–to ride a circle round a hidin’ place, thus crossin’ any trail of men sneakin’ close. It hardly seems possible we can surprise a bunch of Staked Plain Comanches, but the chance shore looks good.”

In the darkest hour before dawn forty grim men rode out of camp behind the Mexican and Pilchuck.

Tom Doan rode next to Bear Claws, the fifth of that cavalcade, and following him came Spades Harkaway. No one spoke. The hoofs of the horses gave forth only dull, sodden sounds, inaudible at little distance. There was an opaque misshapen moon, orange in color, hanging low over the uneven plain. The morning star, white, luminous, like a marvelous beacon, stood high above the blanching velvet of the eastern sky.

They traveled at walk or trot, according to the nature of the ground, until the moon went down and all the stars had paled, except the great one in the east. This, too, soon grew wan. The gray of dawn was at hand. Dismounting in the lee of a low ledge, where brush grew thick and the horses could be tied, Pilchuck left two men on guard and led the others on foot behind the noiseless Mexican.

In less than a quarter of a mile the Mexican whispered something and slipped to his hands’ and knees. Pilchuck and his followers, two and three abreast, kept close to his heels. The fact that the Mexican crept on very slowly and made absolutely no sound had the effect of constraining those behind him to proceed as stealthily. This wrought upon the nerves of the men.

Tom Doan had never experienced such suspense. Just ahead of him lay the unknown ground never seen by him or any of his white comrades, and it held, no one knew how close, a peril soon to be encountered.

The dawn was growing lighter and rows of rocks ahead could be distinguished. The ground began to slope. Beyond what seemed a gray space, probably a canyon, rose a dim vague bulk, uneven and woolly. Soon it showed to be canyon slope with brush on the rim.

Tom, finding that he often rustled the weeds or scraped on the hard ground, devoted himself to using his eyes as well as muscles to help him crawl silently. Thus it was that he did not look up until Pilchuck’s low “Hist!” halted everybody.

Then Tom saw with starting eyes a deep bend in a wonderful gully where on a green level of some acres in extent were a large number of Indian tepees. A stream wound through the middle of this oval and its low rush and gurgle were the only sounds to accentuate the quiet of the morning. Hundreds of Indian ponies were grazing, standing, or lying down all over this meadow-like level. Not an Indian appeared in sight. But as the light was still gray and dim there could not be any certainty as to that.

Pilchuck raised himself to peer over a rock, and he studied the lay of the encampment, the narrow gateways of canyon above and below, and the approaches from the slope on his side. Then he slipped back to face the line of crouching men.

“By holdin’ high we’re in range right here,” he whispered, tensely. “Starwell, take ten men an’ crawl back a little, then round an’ down to a point even with where this canyon narrows below. Harkaway, you take ten men an’ go above, an’ slip down same way. Go slow. Don’t make noise. Don’t stand up. We can then see each other’s positions an’ command all but the far side of this canyon. That’s a big camp–there’s two hundred Indians, more if they have their families. An’ I reckon they have. Now Indians always fight harder under such conditions. We’re in for a hell of a fight. But don’t intentionally shoot squaws an’ kids. That’s all.”

With only the slightest rustle and scrape, and deep intake of breath, the two detachments under Starwell and Harkaway crept back among the stones out of sight. Then absolute silence once more reigned.

Pilchuck’s men lay flat, some of them, more favorably located than others, peering from behind stones. No one spoke. They all waited. Meanwhile the gray dawn broadened to daylight.

“Ugh!” grunted Bear Claws, deep in his throat. His sinewy hand gripped Tom’s shoulder.

Tom raised his head a couple of inches and he espied a tall Indian standing before a tepee, facing the east, where faint streaks of pink and rose heralded the sunrise. Tom felt a violent start jerk over his whole body. It was a hot burst of blood. This very Comanche might have been one of the murderers of Hudnall or, just as much a possibility, one of the despoilers of Jett’s camp, from which Milly Fayre had disappeared. That terrible loss seemed to Tom far back in the past, lengthened, changed by suffering. It was nothing less than hate with which Tom watched that statuesque Indian.

Presently another Indian brave appeared, and another, then several squaws, and in a comparatively short time the camp became active. Columns of blue smoke arose lazily on the still air. The ponies began to move about.

What an endless period it seemed to Tom before Harkaway and Starwell got into their positions! Tom wondered if Pilchuck would wait much longer. His blood beat thick at his temples; his throat was dry; and a dimness of eye bothered him every few seconds.

“Ugh!” exclaimed Bear Claws, and this time he touched Pilchuck, directing him toward a certain point in the encampment.

At that juncture there pealed out a singularly penetrating yell, most startling in its suddenness and nerve-racking with its terrible long-drawn and sustained wildness.

“Comanche war-cry!” hissed Pilchuck. “Some buck has glimpsed our men below. Wait! We want the shootin’ to begin below an’ above. Then mebbe the Indians will run this way.”

Scarcely had the scout ceased his rapid whisper when a Sharps rifle awoke the sleeping echoes. It came from Starwell’s detachment below.

In an instant the Indian camp became a scene of wild rush and shrill cry, above which pealed sharp quick shouts–the voice of authority. A heavy volley from Starwell’s men was signal for Harkaway’s to open up. The puffs of white smoke over the stone betrayed the whereabouts of both detachments. A rattle of Winchesters from the camp told how speedily many of the Indians had gotten into action.

Despite Pilchuck’s orders, some of his men began to fire.

“All right, if you can’t wait. But shoot high,” he shouted.

Twenty Creedmoors thundered in unison from that rocky slope. It seemed to Tom then that hell had indeed broken loose. He had aimed and shot at a running brave. What strange fierceness he felt! His hands shook to spoil his aim and his face streamed with cold sweat. All the men were loading and firing, and he was in the midst of a cracking din. Yet above it all rose a weird piercing sound–the war-cry of the Comanches. Tom thought, as he shuddered under it, that he understood now why hunters had talked of this most hideous and infamous of all Indian yells.

In a few moments the first blending roar of guns and yells broke, and there intervened a less consistent din. Pandemonium reigned down in that encampment, yet there must have been many crafty Indians. Already the front line of tepees was in flames, sending up streaks of smoke, behind which the women and children were dimly seen running for the opposite slope. A number of frightened mustangs were racing with flying manes and tails, up and down the canyon, but the majority appeared to be under control of the Indians and coralled at the widest point. Soon many braves, women and children, dragging packs and horses, were seen through or round the smoke on the opposite slope.

The Comanche braves below then lived up to their reputation as the most daring and wonderful horsemen of the plains. To draw the fire of the hunters numbers of them, half naked demons, yelling, with rifles in hands, rode their mustangs bareback, with magnificent affront and tremendous speed, straight at the gateway of the canyon. They ran a gauntlet of leaden hail.

Tom saw braves pitch headlong to the earth. He saw mustangs plunge and throw their riders far. And he also saw Indians ride fleet as the storm-winds under the volleys from the slope, to escape down the canyon.

No sooner had one bunch of rider braves attempted this than another drove their mustangs pell-mell at the openings. They favored the lower gate, beneath Starwell’s detachment, being quick to catch some little advantage there. The foremost of four Indians, a lean wild brave, magnificently mounted, made such a wonderful target with his defiance and horsemanship that he drew practically all the fire. He rode to his death, but his three companions flashed through the gateway in safety.

“Hold men! Hold!” yelled Pilchuck, suddenly at this juncture. “Load up an’ wait. We’re in for a charge or a trick.”

Tom Doan drew a deep breath, as if he were stifling. His sweaty powder- begrimed hands fumbled at the hot breech of his Creedmoor. How many times had he fired? He did not know, nor could he tell whether or not he had shot an Indian.

Following with sharp gaze where the scout pointed, Tom saw through smoke and heat the little puffs of white, all along behind the burning front line of tepees. There were many braves lying flat, behind stones, trees, camp duffle, everything that would hide a man. Bullets whistled over Tom’s head and spanged from the rocks on each side of him.

“Watch that bunch of horses!” called Pilchuck, warningly. “There’s fifty if there’s one. Reckon we’ve bit off more’n we can chew.”

Dimly through the now thinning smoke Tom could see the bunch of riders designated by Pilchuck. They were planning some audacious break like that of the braves who had sacrificed themselves to help their families to escape. This would be different, manifestly, for all the women and children, and the young braves with them, had disappeared over the far slope. It was war now.

“Jude, they’re too smart to charge us,” said a grizzled old hunter. “I’ll swear thet bunch is aimin’ to make a break to git by an’ above us.”

“Wal, if they do we’ll be in a hell of a pickle,” replied the scout. “I’ll ask Bear Claws what he makes of it.”

The Osage readily replied, “No weyno,” which Tom interpreted as being anything but good for the hunters.

The Mexican urged Pilchuck to work back to higher ground, but the scout grimly shook his head.

Suddenly with remarkable swiftness the compact bunch of Indian horsemen disintegrated, and seemed to spill both to right and left.

“What the hell!” muttered Pilchuck.

One line of Comanche riders swerved below the camp, the other above, and they rode strung out in single file, going in opposite directions. Starwell and Harkaway reserved their fire, expecting some trick. When halfway to each gate the leader of each string wheeled at right angles to head straight for the slope.

“By God! they’re goin’ between us!” ejaculated Pilchuck. “Men, we’ve shore got to stick now an’ fight for our lives.”

At two hundred yards these incomparable riders were as hard to hit with bullets as birds on the wing. Starwell’s detachment began to shoot and Harkaway’s followed suit. Their guns were drowned in the dreadful war-cry of the Comanches. It seemed wilder, more piercing now, closer, a united sound, filling the ears, horrid yet not discordant, full of death, but for all that a magnificent blending of human voices. It was the cry of a wild tribe for life.

It lifted Tom’s hair stiff on his head. He watched with staring eyes. How those mustangs leaped! They crossed the open level below, the danger zone of leaden hail, without a break in their speeding line. When they reached the base of the slope they were perked to their haunches, and in a flash each one was riderless. The Comanches had taken to the rocks.

“Ahuh! I reckoned so,” growled Pilchuck. “Pretty slick, if I do say it. Men, we’ve got crawlin’ snakes to deal with now. You shore have to look sharp.”

This sudden maneuver had the same effect upon the Starwell and Harkaway detachments as it had on Pilchuck’s. It almost turned the tables on the white men. How grave it was perhaps only the experienced plainsmen realized. They all reserved their fire, manifestly directing attention to his new and hidden peril. The Comanches left in camp, a considerable number, redoubled their shots.

“Men, reckon it ain’t time yet to say every one for himself,” declared Pilchuck. “But we’ve shore got to crawl up to the level. Spread out, an’ crawl flat on your bellies, an’ keep rocks behind you.”

Thus began a retreat, fraught with great risk. Bullets from the Winchesters spanged off the rocks, puffing white powder dust into the air. And these bullets came from the rear. The Comanches on each side had vanished like lizards into the maze of boulders. But every hunter realized these Indians were creeping, crawling, worming their way to places of advantage, keeping out of sight with the cunning natural to them.

Tom essayed to keep up with Bear Claws, but this was impossible by crawling. The Osage wriggled like a snake. Pilchuck, too, covered ground remarkably for a large man. Others crawled fast or slowly, according to their abilities. Thus the detachment, which had heretofore kept together, gradually disintegrated.

It had been a short two hundred yards from the top of this slope to the position the hunters had abandoned. Crawling back seemed interminable and insurmountable to Tom. Yet he saw how imperative it was to get there.

Some one was close behind Tom, crawling laboriously, panting heavily. It was Ory Tacks. As he was fat and round, the exertion was almost beyond his endurance and the risks were great. Tom had himself to think of, yet he wondered if he should not help Ory. Roberts crawled a little to Tom’s left. He too was slow. An old white-haired buffalo-hunter named Calkins had taken Pilchuck’s place on Tom’s right. The others were above, fast wriggling out of sight.

A bullet zipped off a stone close to Tom and sang into the air. It had come from another direction. Another bullet, striking in front of him, scattered dust and gravel in his face. Then bullets hissed low down, just over the rocks. The Comanches were not yet above the hunters. Calkins called low for those back of him to hurry, that the word had been passed back from Pilchuck.

Tom was crawling as flat as a flounder, dragging a heavy gun. He could not make faster time. He was burning with sweat, yet cold as ice, and the crack of Winchesters had the discordance of a nightmare.

“Doan,” called Roberts, sharply. “The fellow behind you’s been hit.”

Tom peered around. Ory Tacks lay with face down. His fat body was quivering.

“Ory! Ory! Are you hit?” flashed Tom.

“I should smile,” he groaned, lifting a pale face. His old slouch hat was still in place and a tuft of tow-colored hair stuck out through a hole. “Never mind–me.”

“Roberts, come help me,” called Tom, and began to back down toward Ory. Roberts did likewise, and they both reached the young man about the same time.

“Much obliged to see you,” said Ory, gratefully, as they took hold of his arms, one on each side.

Up to that moment Tom had been mostly stultified by emotion utterly new to him. It had been close to panic, for he had found himself hard put to it to keep from leaping up to run. But something in connection with Ory’s misfortune strung Tom suddenly and acutely to another mood. Grim realization and anger drove away his fear.

“Drag him; he cain’t help himself,” panted Roberts.

Then began what Tom felt to be the most heart-breaking labor imaginable. They had to crawl and drag the wounded Ory up hill. Tom locked his left arm under Ory’s, and dragging his rifle in his right hand he jerked and hunched himself along. Bullets now began to whistle and patter from the other side, signifying that the Comanches to the right had located the crawling hunters. Suddenly above Tom boomed a heavy Creedmoor–then two booms followed in succession.

“Good!–It was–aboot time,” panted Roberts.

Tom felt the coldness leave his marrow for good. It was fight now. Pilchuck, Bear Claws, the Mexican, and some of the old plainsmen had reached the top of the slope and had opened on the Comanches. This spurred him, if not to greater effort, which was impossible, at least to dogged and unquenchable endurance. Roberts whistled through his nose; his lean face was bathed with sweat. Ory Tacks struggled bravely to help himself along, though it was plain his agony was tremendous.

The slope grew less steep and more thickly strewn with large rocks. Tom heard no more bullets whiz up from direction of the encampment. They came from both sides, and the reports of Winchesters, sharp and rattling above the Creedmoors, covered a wide half circle. Farther away the guns of the Starwell and Harkaway forces rang out steadily, if not often. It had become a hot battle and the men were no longer shooting at puffs of white smoke.

Not a moment too soon did Tom and Roberts drag Tacks over the top of the slope into a zone of large boulders from behind which Pilchuck and his men were fighting. For almost at the last instant Tom heard a dull spat of lead striking flesh. Roberts’ left arm, on which he was hunching himself along, crumpled under him, and he dropped flat.

“They–busted–me,” he declared, huskily, then let go of Tacks, and floundered behind a rock.

Tom by superhuman exertion dragged Ory farther on, behind a long low ledge, from which a hunter was shooting. Then Tom collapsed. But as he sank flat he heard the boy’s grateful, “Much obliged, Tom.” For a few moments then Tom was deaf and blind to the battle. There was a bursting riot within his breast, an overtaxed heart fluttering to recover. It seemed long that he lay prostrate, utterly unable to lift face or hand. But gradually that passed. Pilchuck crawled close, smelling of sweat, dust, and powder.

“Tom, are you hurt?” he queried, shaking him.

“No–only–all in,” whispered Tom, huskily, between pants. “We had to–drag Ory–up here. He’s hit; so’s Roberts.”

“I’ll take a look at them,” said the scout. “We’re shore in better position here. Reckon we can hold the red devils off. Lucky Starwell an’ Harkaway are behind them, on both sides. We’re in for a siege… Bullets flyin’ from east an’ west. Peep out mighty careful an’ look for an Indian. Don’t shoot at smoke.”

Tom crawled a little to the left and cautiously took up a position where he could peer from behind the long flat rock. He could see nothing move. An uneven field of boulders, large and small, stretched away, with narrow aisles of gray grass and ground between. The firing had diminished greatly. Both sides were conserving ammunition. Not for several moments did Tom espy a puff of white smoke, and that came from a heavy Creedmoor, four hundred yards or more away, from a point above where Starwell’s men had guarded the gateway of the canyon.

Meanwhile as he watched for something to shoot at he could hear Pilchuck working over the wounded men, and ascertained that Roberts had been shot through the arm, not, however, to break the bones, and Ory Tacks had a broken hip. Tom realized the gravity of such a wound, out there in the wilderness.

“I’d be much obliged for a drink of water,” was all Tom heard Ory say.

Pilchuck crawled away and did not return. Ory Tacks and Roberts lay at the base of the low ledge, out of range of bullets for the present. But they lay in the sun and already the sun was hot. The scout had chosen a small oval space irregularly surrounded by boulders and outcroppings of rough ledges. By twisting his head Tom could espy eight or ten of Pilchuck’s force, some facing east behind their fortifications, others west. Tom heard both profanity and loquacious humor. The Mexican and the Osage were not in sight.

Then Tom peeped out from behind his own covert. This time his quick eye caught a glimpse of something moving, like a rabbit slipping into brush. Above that place then slid out a red streak and a thin blue-white cloud of smoke. Sputt! A bullet hit the corner of his rock and whined away. Tom dodged back, suddenly aghast, and hot with anger. A sharp-eyed Indian had seen him. Tom wormed his way around back of the long rock to the other end. Behind the next rock lay the old white-haired hunter, bare-headed, with sweat and tobacco stains upon his grizzled face.

“Take it easy an’ slow,” he advised Tom, complacently. “Comanches can’t stand a long fight. They’re riders, an’ all we need is patience. On the ground we can lick hell out of them.”

The old plainsman’s nonchalance was incredible, yet vastly helpful to Tom. He put a hard curb on his impetuosity, and forced himself to wait and think carefully of every action before he undertook it. Therefore he found a position where he could command a certain limited field of rocks without risk to himself. It was like peeping through a knot hole too small for any enemy to see at a distance. From this vantage point Tom caught fleeting glimpses and flashes of color, gray and bronze, once a speck of red. But these vanished before he could bring his rifle into play.

“If you see suthin’ move shoot quick as lightnin’,” said the old plainsman. “It might be a gopher or a cottontail, but take no chances. It’s likely to be a two-legged varmint.”

Intense concentration, and a spirit evolving from the hour, enabled Tom to make considerable progress toward the plainsman’s idea of fighting Comanches. Tom fired again and again, at the flit of a bird across a narrow space, at the flash of gun, a gleam of a feather. But he could never see whether or not he hit an Indian. Strange to note, however, was the fact that these fleeting movements of something were never repeated in the same place. Concentration brought to Tom the certainty that he was seeing a faint glimpse now and then of these elusive Comanches. This, with the crack of Winchesters and hum of bullets, in time bred in him some semblance of the spirit of the old plainsman. It was indeed a fight. He had his part to perform. Life was here, and an inch away sped death. Grim, terrible, but exalting, and strangely memorable of a vague past! Tom Doan realized the inheritance he had in common with men, white or red.

The hours passed swiftly for the fighters. Another wounded man joined Roberts and Ory Tacks, and the ordeal must have been frightful for them. Tom forgot them; so did all the defenders of that position. The glaring sun poured down its heat. Stones and guns were so hot they burned. No breeze stirred. And the fight went on, favorable for the buffalo-hunters because of their fortifications, unfavorable in regard to time. They were all parching for thirst. By chance or blunder the canteens had been left on the saddles and water had come to be almost as precious as powder. The old plainsman cursed the Staked Plain. Tom’s mouth appeared full of cotton paste. He had kept pebbles in his mouth till he was sick of them.

Noon went by. Afternoon came. The sun, hotter than ever, began to slope to the west. And the fight went on, narrowing down as to distance, intensifying as to spirit, magnifying peril to both sides. The Creedmoors from the Starwell and Harkaway forces kept up the bulk of the shooting. They were directing most of their fire down into the encampment, no doubt to keep the Comanches there from joining their comrades on the slope. Mustangs showed on the farther points, and evidently had strayed.

Presently Pilchuck came crawling on hands and knees, without his rifle or coat. A bloody patch showed on his shoulder.

“Tom, reckon I got punctured a little,” he said. “It ain’t bad, but it’s bleedin’ like hell. Tear my shirt sleeve off an’ tie it round under my arm over my shoulder tight.”

An ugly bullet hole showed angrily in the upper part of the scout’s shoulder, apparently just through the flesh.

“Notice that bullet come from behind,” said Pilchuck. “There shore was a mean redskin on your side. He hit two of us before I plugged him. There –good… Now how’s the rest of your hospital?”

“I don’t know. Afraid I forgot,” replied Tom, aghast.

“Wal, I’ll see.”

He crawled over to the wounded man and spoke. Tom heard Roberts answer, but Ory Tacks was silent. That disturbed Tom. Then the scout came back to him.

“Roberts ‘s sufferin’ some, but he’s O. K. The young fellar, though, is dyin’, I’m afraid. Shot in the groin. Mebbe–”

“Pilchuck!… Ory didn’t seem bad hurt–”

“Wal, he is, an’ if we don’t get some water he’ll go,” declared the scout, emphatically. “Fact is, we’re all bad off for water. It’s shore hot. What a dumbhead I was to forget the canteens!”

“I’ll go after them,” returned Tom, like a flash.

“It’s not a bad idee,” said Pilchuck, after a moment’s reflection. “Reckon it’d be no riskier than stayin’ here.”

“Direct me. Where’d you leave the horses?”

The scout faced south, at right angles with the cross-fire from the Comanches, and presently extended his long arm.

“See that low bluff–not far–the last one reachin’ down into this basin. It’s behind there. You can’t miss it. Lucky the rocks from here on are thick as cabbages.”

“I can make it,” declared Tom, doggedly. “But to get back! That stumps me.”

“Easy. You’ve got to go slow, pickin’ the best cover. Just lay a line of little stones as you crawl along. Reckon the Comanches are all on these two sides of us, but there MIGHT be some tryin’ to surround us.”

“Anything more?” queried Tom, briefly.

The scout apparently had no thought of the tremendousness of this enterprise to Tom. It was as if he had naturally expected of Tom what he would do himself if he had not been partially incapacitated. Tom realized he had never in his life received such a compliment. It swelled his heart. He felt light, hard, tense, vibrating to a strange excitation.

“Wal, I can’t think of anythin’,” replied the scout. “Comin’ back be slower’n molasses, an’ get the drift of the fight. We’re holdin’ these redskins off. But I reckon Starwell an’ Harkaway have been doin’ more. If I don’t miss my guess they’ve spilled blood down in the canyon. Comanches are great on horseback, but they can’t stick out a fight like this. If they rush us we’re goners. If they don’t they’ll quit before sunset.”