Mayne Reid

“ In truth, the prospect is appalling; and Charles Clancy, almost as much as ever in his life, feels that life in peril.
Could he look into the courtyard of the San Saba Mission, and see what is there, he might think it even more so. Without that, there is sufficient to shake his resolution about standing his ground; enough to make him spur away from the spot, and leave Jupiter to his fate.
“No—never!” he mentally exclaims, closing all reflection. “As a coward I could not live. If I must die, it shall be bravely. Fear not, Jupe! We stand or fall together!” ”

“ He is in doubt what to do. Every moment he may hear the report of a gun, and have a bullet into his back. He knows not the instant he may be shot out of his saddle.
Shall he turn upon the pursuer, make stand, and meet him face to face? He dares not. The dread of the unearthly is still upon him. It may be the Devil!
The silence, too, awes him. The pursuing horseman has not yet hailed—has not spoken word, or uttered exclamation. Were it not for the heavy tread of the hoof he might well believe him a spectre.
If Darke only knew who it is, he would fear him as much, or more. ”

“ Ergo, Charles Clancy hasn’t been killed after all; for there he is, alive, and life-like as any man among them; mounted upon a steed which Jim Borlasse remembers well—as well as he does his master. To forget the animal would be a lapse of memory altogether unnatural. There are weals on the robber’s back,—a souvenir of chastisement received for stealing that horse,—scars cicatrised, but never to be effaced.
Deeper still than the brand on his body has sunk the record into his soul. He was more than disappointed—enraged—on hearing that Richard Darke had robbed him of a premeditated vengeance. ”

“ The black-jack grove is right in their way, its shade invites them, for the sun is still sultry. Soon they are in it, their horses tied to trees, and their haversacks summoned to disgorge. Some corn-bread and bacon is all these contain; but, no better refection needs a prairie hunter, nor cares for, so long he has a little distilled corn-juice to wash it down, with a pipe of tobacco to follow. They have eaten, drunk, and are making ready to smoke, when an object upon the plain attracts their attention. Only a cloud of dust, and far off—on the edge of the horizon. ”

“ The coon-hunter has no such delusion. Soon as hearing, he recognises the tongue of a stag-hound, knowing it to be Clancy’s. He is only astray about its peculiar tone, now quite changed. The animal is neither barking nor baying; nor yet does it yelp as if suffering chastisement. The soft tremulous whine, that comes pealing in prolonged reverberation through the trunks of the cypresses, proclaims distress of a different kind—as of a dog asleep and dreaming! ”

“ To Clancy there is nothing strange in Darke’s sudden and terrified departure. With the quickness of thought itself, he comprehends its cause. In their encounter under the live-oak, in shadow and silence, his old rival has not recognised him. Nor can he since have seen Borlasse, or any of the band. Why he is behind them, Clancy cannot surmise; though he has a suspicion of the truth. Certainly Darke came not there by any design, but only chance-conducted. Had it been otherwise, he would not have gone off in such wild affright. ”

“ The hunter turns faint, sick, as he contemplates this hecatomb of corpses. A spectacle far more fearful than any ever witnessed upon battle-field. There men lie in death from wounds given, as received under the grand, if delusive, idea of glory. Those Cris Tucker sees must have been struck down by the hand of the assassin!
For a time he stands gazing upon them, scarce knowing what to do.
His first impulse is to turn back, rush out of the courtyard, and away altogether from the place.
But a thought—a loyal thought or instinct, stays him. Where is Hawkins? ”

“ There are those who believe in dreams, in the reality of visions that appear to the slumbering senses. To Clancy’s, awake, on this night, there seems a horrid realism, almost a certainty, of some dread danger. And too certain it is. If endowed with the faculty of clairvoyance, he would know it to be so—would witness a series of incidents at that moment occurring up the river—scarce ten miles from the spot where he is lying—scenes that would cause him to start suddenly to his feet, rush for his horse, and ride off, calling upon his companions to follow. ”

“ On its bank he has heard a name, and caught sight of him bearing it—the man of all others he has most fear. The backwoodsman who tracked him in the forests of Mississippi, now trailing him upon the prairies of Texas, Simeon Woodley ever pursuing him! If in terror he has been retreating through the trees, not less does he glide over the open ground. Though going in a gallop, every now and then, as before, he keeps slewing round in the saddle and gazing back with apprehensiveness, in fear he may see forms issuing from the timber’s edge, and coming on after. ”

“ Still is there a way to traverse the treacherous ground, for one knowing it, as does Darke’s runaway slave. Here, again, has Nature intervened, lending her beneficent aid to the oppressed fleeing from oppression. The elements in their anger, spoken by tempest and tornado, have laid prostrate several trees, whose trunks, lying along the ooze, lap one another, and form a continuous causeway. Where there chances to be a break, human ingenuity has supplied the connecting link, making it as much as possible to look like Nature’s own handiwork; though it is that of Jupiter himself. ”

“ There is no likelihood of human creature coming that way. It is a sterile waste, without game to tempt the hunter, and though a trail runs across it, Borlasse, with fiendish forethought, has placed him so far from this, that no one travelling along it could possibly see him. He can just descry the lone cottonwood afar off, outlined against the horizon like a ship at sea. It is the only tree in sight; elsewhere not even a bush to break the drear monotony of the desert.
He thinks of Simeon Woodley, Ned Heywood, and those who may pursue the plunderers of the settlement. ”

“ Has he not yet seen the head and hound? The moon must be on his back, since it is behind Clancy’s own. It may be that Brasfort—a new figure in the oft changing tableau—stays his advance. Possibly the unexplained presence of the animal has given him a surprise, and hence he approaches with caution?
All at once, the hoof-stroke ceases to be heard, and stillness reigns around. No sound save that made by the claws of the dog, that continues its task with unabated assiduity—not yet having taken any notice of the footsteps it can scarce fail to hear. ”

“ We have to thank the Almighty that our dear ones have escaped a great danger. But while grateful to God, let us remember there is a man also deserving gratitude. A brave young man, we all believed dead—murdered. He is still alive, let us hope so. Simeon Woodley has told us of the danger he is now in—death if he fall into the hands of these desperate outlaws. Friends, and fellow citizens! I need not appeal to you on behalf of this noble youth. I know you are all of one mind with myself, that come what will, cost what it may, Charles Clancy must be saved. ”

“ Like the eagle’s mate, deprived of her proud lord, she will live all her after life in lone solitude—or die. She has lost her lover, or thinks so, believing Clancy dead; but the love still burns within her bosom, and will, so long as her life may last. Colonel Armstrong soon begins to see this, and despairs of the roses ever again returning to the cheeks of his elder daughter.
It would, no doubt, be different were the blighted heart that of his younger. With her the Spanish proverb, “un clavo saca otro clavo,” might have meaning. By good fortune, Jessie needs no nail to drive out another. ”