The Trail-Hunter: A Tale of the Far West. Gustave AimardЧитать онлайн книгу.
The circle that inclosed the hapless Indian drew closer and closer. Henceforth it was only a question of time with him. The rangers, recognising the impossibility of conquering this lion-hearted man, had changed their tactics: they no longer attacked him, but contented themselves with forming an impassable circle round him, waiting prudently for the moment when the strength of the prey, which could not escape them, was exhausted, in order to rush upon him.
The Coras understood the intention of his enemies. A contemptuous smile contracted his haughty lips, and he rushed resolutely toward these men who recoiled before him. Suddenly, with a movement quicker than thought, he threw with extraordinary strength the ploughshare among the rangers, and bounding like a tiger, leaped on a horse, and clutched its rider with superhuman vigour.
Ere the rangers had recovered from the surprise this unforeseen attack occasioned in them, by a desperate effort, and still holding the horseman, the chieftain drew from his girdle a short sharp knife, which he buried up to the hilt in the flanks of the horse. The animal uttered a shriek of pain, rushed headlong into the crowd, and bore both away with maddening speed.
The rangers, rendered furious at being played with by a single man, and seeing their most terrible enemy escape them, started in pursuit; but with his liberty the Coras had regained all his energy: he felt himself saved. In spite of the desperate efforts the rangers made to catch him up, he disappeared in the darkness.
The cacique continued to fly till he felt his horse tottering under him. He had not loosed his hold of the horseman, who was half strangled by the rude embrace, and both rolled on the ground. This man wore the costume of the Apache Indians. The Coras regarded him for an instant attentively, and then a smile of contempt played round his lips.
"You are not a redskin," he said, in a hollow voice; "you are only a paleface dog. Why put on the skin of the lion when you are a cowardly coyote?"
The ranger, still stunned by the fall he had suffered, and the hug he had endured, made no reply.
"I could kill you," the Indian continued; "but my vengeance would not be complete. You and yours must pay me for all the innocent blood you have shed like cowards this night. I will mark you, so that I may know you again."
Then, with fearful coolness, the Coras threw the ranger on his back, put his knee on his chest, and burying his finger in the socket of his eye, gave it a sharp rotatory movement, and plucked out his eyeball. On this frightful mutilation, the wretch uttered a cry of pain impossible to describe. The Indian got up.
"Go!" he said to him. "Now I am certain of finding you again whenever I want you."
At this moment the sound of hoofs could be heard a short distance off: the rangers had evidently heard their comrade's cry, and were hurrying to his aid. The Coras, rushed into the bushes and disappeared. A few moments later the rangers came up.
"Nathan, my son!" Red Cedar shouted as he leaped from his horse and threw himself on the body of the wounded man. "Nathan, my firstborn, is dead!"
"No," one of the rangers answered; "but he is very bad."
It was really the squatter's eldest son whom the cacique had mutilated. Red Cedar seized him in his arms, placed him before him on the saddle, and the band started again at a gallop. The rangers had accomplished their task: they had sixty human scalps hanging from their girdles. The rancheria of the Coras was no longer aught save a pile of ashes.
Of all the inhabitants of this hapless village only the cacique survived; but he would suffice to avenge his brothers.
CHAPTER VIII
THE VALLEY OF THE BUFFALO
Don Miguel Zarate, on leaving his son, remounted his horse and rode straight to Paso, to the house of Don Luciano Pérez, the juez de letras (police magistrate).
The hacendero was one of the richest landed proprietors in the country; and as he was thoroughly acquainted with the spirit of the depositaries of justice in those parts, he had consequently been careful to line his purse well. Here were two reasons, then, to interest the judge in his favour, and this really happened.
The worthy Don Luciano shuddered on hearing the details of what had occurred between Don Pablo and the squatters. He swore that he would, without delay, take an exemplary vengeance for this starting felony on the part of the heretic dogs, and that it was high time to bring them reason. Confirming himself more and more in his resolution, he buckled on his sword, gave orders to twenty well-armed alguaciles to mount, and placing himself at the head of this numerous escort, he proceeded toward Buffalo Valley.
Don Miguel had witnessed with secret annoyance all these formidable preparations. He placed but slight confidence in the courage of the policemen, and he would have preferred the judge leaving him master to act as he pleased. He had even adroitly attempted to obtain from Don Luciano a regular warrant, which he would have executed however he might think proper; but the judge, burning with an unusual warlike ardor, and spurred on by the large sum he had received, would listen to nothing, but insisted on himself taking the head of the expedition.
Don Luciano Pérez was a plump little man of about sixty years of age, round as a tub, with a jolly face, adorned with a rubicund nose and two cunning little eyes. This man cordially detested the North Americans; and, in the courageous deed he was committing at this moment, hatred was as much the instigation as avarice.
The little band set out at a canter, and proceeded rapidly toward the forest. The judge hurled fire and flames at the audacious usurpers, as he called them; he spoke of nothing less than killing them without mercy, if they attempted even the slightest resistance to the orders he was about to give them. Don Miguel, who was much calmer, and foreboded no good from this great wrath, sought in vain to pacify him by telling him that he would in all probability have to do with men difficult to intimidate, against whom coolness would be the best weapon.
They gradually approached. The hacendero, in order to shorten the journey, had led the band by a cross road, which saved at least one-third the distance; and the first trees of the forest already appeared about two miles off. The mischief produced by the squatters was much more considerable than Don Pablo had represented to his father; and, at the first glance, it seemed impossible that, in so short a time, four men, even though working vigorously, could have accomplished it. The finest trees lay on the ground; enormous piles of planks were arranged at regular distances, and on the San Pedro an already completed raft only awaited a few more stems of trees to be thrust into the water.
Don Miguel could not refrain from sighing at the sight of the devastation committed in one of his best forests; but the nearer they approached the spot where they expected to meet the squatters, the more lukewarm grew the warlike zeal of the judge and his acolytes, and the hacendero soon found himself compelled to urge them on, instead of restraining them as he had hitherto done. Suddenly the sound of an axe re-echoed a few paces ahead of the band. The judge impelled by the feeling of his duty, and shame of appearing frightened, advanced boldly in the direction of the sound, followed by his escort.
"Stop!" a rough voice shouted at the moment the policemen turned the corner of a lane.
With that instinct of self-preservation which never abandons them, the alguaciles stopped as if their horses' feet had been suddenly welded to the ground. Ten paces from them stood a man in the centre of the ride, leaning on an American rifle. The judge turned to Don Miguel with such an expression of hesitation and honest terror that the hacendero could not refrain from laughing.
"Come, courage, Don Luciano," he said to him. "This man is alone; he cannot venture to bar our passage."
"Con mil diablos!" the judge exclaimed, ashamed of this impression which he could not master, and frowning portentously, "forward, you fellows, and fire on that scoundrel if he make but a sign to resist you."
The alguaciles set out again with prudential hesitation.
"Stop! I tell you again," the squatter repeated. "Did you not hear the order I gave you!"
The judge, reassured by the presence of the hacendero, then advanced, and said with a tone which he strove to render terrible, but which was only ridiculous through the terror he revealed, —
"I, Don Luciano Pérez,