"The trees along the banks of the river," said Bill Breakstone.
"And they are still two or three miles away," said Woodfall.
The leader rode among his men and spoke with them. The train moved forward at the same speed, drawing itself like a great serpent over the plain, but there was a closing up of the ranks. The wagons moved more closely together, and every driver had a rifle under his feet. The horsemen rode toward the head of the train, held their rifles across the pommels of their saddles, and loosened the pistols in their holsters. Phil was conscious of a deep, suppressed excitement, an intensity of expectation, attached to the dark line of trees that now rose steadily higher and higher out of the plain.
An old buffalo hunter in the train now recalled the river, also, and, after studying the lay of the land carefully, said that they would find a ford about two miles north of the point toward which the head of the train was directed. The course was changed at once, and they advanced toward the northwest.
"Do you think anything is going to happen, Bill?" asked Phil, speaking for the first time.
"Do you feel kind of tingly in your blood?" asked Breakstone, not replying directly.
"I tingle all over," said Phil frankly.
"I'm tingling a bit myself," said Breakstone, "and I've spent a good many years in the wilderness. Yes, Phil, I think something is going to happen, and I think you and me and the Cap and Arenberg ought to stick together."
"That is well spoken," said Middleton. "We are chosen comrades, and we must stand by one another. See how the trees are drawing nearer."
The black line now stood up level with the earth, and the trees became detached from one another. They could also see the thick undergrowth hiding the river, which seemed to flow in a deep gash across the plain. Middleton took from his saddlebags a pair of strong glasses, and, as they rode on, examined the double line of trees with the minutest scrutiny. Then he lowered the glasses, shaking his head.
"I can't make out anything," he said. "Nothing moves that I can see. There is no sign of human life."
"The Comanche iss cunning," said Arenberg. "Harm iss done where harm iss meant, but I for one am willing to meet him."
The mild German spoke in such a tone of passion that Phil was startled and looked at him. Arenberg's blue eyes shone with a sort of blue fire, and he was unconsciously pressing his horse ahead of the others. It was evident, even to one as young as Phil, that he was stirred to his utmost depths. The boy leaned over and whispered to Breakstone:
"He must have some special cause to hate the Comanches. You know he was in that massacre at New Braunfels."
"That's so," said Breakstone,
"When you feel the savage knife,
You remember it all your life."
"These mild men like Arenberg are terrible when they are stirred up, Phil. 'Still waters run deep,' which sounds to me rather Irish, because if they are still they don't run at all. But it's good all the same, and, between you and me, Phil, I'd give a lot if we were on the other side of this river, which has no name in the geographies, which rises I don't know where, which empties into I don't know what, and which belongs to I don't know whom. But, be that as it may, lay on, Macduff, and I won't be the first to cry 'Hold, enough!'"
The train took another curve to the northward, approaching the ford, of which the old scouts told. The swells dipped down, indicating a point at which the banks of the river were low, but they could still see the double line of trees lining either shore, and the masses of bushes and weeds that extended along the stream. But nothing stirred them. No wind blew. The boughs of the cottonwoods, live oaks, and willows hung lifeless under the somber sky. There was still no sign of human presence or of anything that lived.
But the men of the train did not relax their caution. They were approaching now up a sort of shallow trough containing a dry sandy bed, down which water evidently flowed during the wet season into the river. It, also, for the last half mile before it reached the main stream, had trees and bushes on either shore. Middleton suggested that they beat up this narrow strip of forest, lest they walk straight into an ambush. Woodfall thought the idea good, and twenty men scouted the thickets. They found nothing, and many in the train began to feel incredulous. That Comanche had been a mere boaster. He was probably still galloping away over the prairie, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the Santa Fé train. But Middleton yet distrusted. He seemed now to be in every sense the leader of the train, and he did it so quietly and with such indirection that Woodfall took him to be an assistant, and felt no offense. At his prompting, strong bodies of skirmishers were thrown forward on either bank of the dry creek bed, and now, increasing their pace somewhat, they rapidly drew near the river.
It still seemed to Phil that nothing could happen. It was true that the skies were gray and somber, but there was no suggestion of an active and hostile presence, and now the river was only a hundred yards away. From his horse's back he could see the surface of the stream--narrow, muddy, and apparently deep. But on the hither shore there was a gradual slope to its waters, and another of the same kind on the farther bank seemed to lead up among the trees.
"It ain't so deep as it looks," said an old frontiersman. "'Bout four feet, I should say. It'll just 'bout hit the bottoms o' our wagon beds."
The stream itself was not more than twenty yards wide. One could pass it in a few minutes, if nothing was thrown across the way, and Phil now began to feel that the unspoken alarm was false. But just when the feeling became a conviction and the wagons were not more than twenty yards from the river, he saw something gleaming in the brush on the far shore. It was the dyed feather of an eagle, and it made a blood red spot against the green bushes. Looking closely Phil saw beneath the feather the light copper face of an Indian, and then he knew that the Comanches were there.
Scarcely a second after he saw the coppery face, a hurricane of arrows whistled from the covert on the far shore. The short shafts of the Comanches filled the air. Mingled with them was the sharp crashing of rifles, and bullets and arrows whistled together. Then came the long yell of the Comanches, from scores of throats, high pitched, fierce, defiant, like the scream of a savage beast about to leap upon its prey. In spite of all his resolution, Phil felt that strong shiver in every nerve from head to heel. Some of the shafts were buried to the feather in the bodies of the horses and mules, and a terrible tumult arose as the animals uttered their screaming neigh and fought and kicked in pain and terror. Nor did the men escape. One, pierced through the throat by a deadly barb, fell lifeless from his horse. Another was stricken in the breast, and a dozen were wounded by either arrows or bullets.
The train was thrown into confusion, and the drivers pulled back on their lines. Sure death seemed to hover in front of them. The greatest danger arose from the wounded and frightened horses, which plunged and struggled and tried to break from their harness, but the hands on the lines were strong, and gradually they were reduced to order. The wagons, also, were driven back a little, and then the triumphant Comanches sent forth their war whoop again and again. The short shafts once more flew in showers, mingled as before with the whistling of the bullets, but most of the missiles, both arrows and bullets, fell short. Now the Comanches appeared thickly among the bushes, chiefly on foot, their horses left at the edge of the timber, and began to make derisive gestures.
It seemed to Phil that the crossing of the river was impossible in the face of such a fierce and numerous foe, but Middleton and Woodfall had been conferring, and suddenly the Cap, to use his more familiar name among the men, whirled off to the south at the head of a hundred horsemen. He waved his hand to his three partners, and they galloped with the band.
"There must be another crossing, not as good as this, but still a crossing," said Bill Breakstone. "If at first you don't succeed, then try, try again."
This flanking movement was hidden from the Comanches on the other shore by the belt of timber on the side of the train, and the horsemen galloped along rapidly in search of a declivity. Phil's heart was