The Lone Ranche

The new proposal, which the colonel supposes to have reached the hands of Horned Lizard in that letter carried by Pedrillo, will be eagerly accepted. Barbato will bring the chief with his cut-throats to the Arroyo de Alamo, sure as there is a sun in the sky.

It is but a question of time. They may come up at any hour – any minute; and having arranged all preliminaries, Uraga remains in his tent to await the cue for action. He little dreams at the moment he is thus expecting his red-skinned confederate, that the latter, along with the best braves of his band, has gone to the happy hunting grounds, while his go-between, Barbato, is in safe keeping elsewhere.

As the hours pass, and no one is reported as approaching, he becomes impatient; for the time has long elapsed since the Tenawa chief should have been upon the spot.

Chafing, he strides forth from the tent, and proceeds towards the place where the look-out has been stationed. Reaching it, he reconnoitres for himself, with a telescope he has taken along, to get a better view down the valley.

At first, levelling the glass, no one can be seen. In the reach of open ground, dotted here and there with groves, there are deer browsing, and a grizzly bear is seen crossing between the cliffs, but no shape that resembles a human being.

He is about lowering the telescope when a new form comes into its field of view – a horseman riding up the creek. No the animal is a mule. No matter the rider is a man.

Keenly scrutinising, he perceives it is an Indian, though not one of the wild sort. His garb betokens him of the tamed.

Another glance through the glass and his individuality declares itself, Uraga recognising him as one of the messengers sent to the Tenawas’ town. Not the principal, Pedrillo, but he of secondary importance, José.

“Returning alone!” mutters the Mexican to himself. “What does that mean? Where can Pedrillo be? What keeps him behind, I wonder?”

He continues wondering and conjecturing till José has ridden up to the spot, when, perceiving his master, the latter dismounts and approaches him.

In the messenger’s countenance there is an expression of disappointment, and something more. It tells a tale of woe, with reluctance to disclose it.

“Where is Pedrillo?” is the first question asked in anxious impatience.

“Oh, señor coronel!” replies José, hat in hand, and trembling in every joint. “Pedrillo! Pobre Pedrillito!”

“Well! Poor Pedrillito – what of him? Has anything happened to him?”

“Yes, your excellency, a terrible mischance I fear to tell it you.”

“Tell it, sirrah, and at once! Out with it, whatever it is!”

“Alas, Pedrillo is gone!”

“Gone – whither?”

“Down the river.”

“What river?”

“The Pecos.”

“Gone down the Pecos? On what errand?” inquired the colonel, in surprise.

“On no errand, your excellency.”

“Then what’s taken him down the Pecos? Why went he?”

“Señor coronel, he has not gone of his own will. It is only his dead body that went; it was carried down by the flood.”

“Drowned? Pedrillo drowned?”

“Ay de mi! ’Tis true, as I tell you – too true, pobrecito.”

“How did this happen, José?”

“We were crossing at the ford, señor. The waters were up from a norte that’s just passed over the plains. The river was deep and running rapid, like a torrent, Pedrillo’s macho stumbled, and was swept off. It was as much as mine could do to keep its legs. I think he must have got his feet stuck in the stirrups, for I could see him struggling alongside the mule till both went under. When they came to the surface both were drowned – dead. They floated on without making a motion, except what the current gave them as their bodies were tossed about by it. As I could do nothing there, I hastened here to tell you what happened. Pobre Pedrillito!”

The cloud already darkening Uraga’s brow grows darker as he listens to the explanation. It has nothing to do with the death of Pedrillo, or compassion for his fate – upon which he scarce spends a thought – but whether there has been a miscarriage of that message of which the drowned man was the bearer. His next interrogatory, quickly put, is to get satisfied on this head.

“You reached the Tenawa town?”

“We did, señor coronel.”

“Pedrillo carried a message to the Horned Lizard, with a letter for Barbato. You know that, I suppose?”

“He told me so.”

“Well, you saw him deliver the letter to Barbato?”

“He did not deliver it to Barbato.”

“To the chief, then?”

“To neither, your Excellency. He could not.”

“Could not! Why?”

“They ere not there to receive it. They are no longer in this world – neither the Horned Lizard nor Barbato. Señor Coronel, the Tenawas have met with a great misfortune. They’ve had a fight with a party of Tejanos. The chief is killed, Barbato is killed, and nearly half of their braves. When Pedrillo and I reached the town we found the tribe in mourning, the women all painted black, with their hair cut off; the men who had escaped the slaughter cowed, and keeping concealed within their lodges.”

A wild exclamation leaps from the lips of Uraga as he listens to these disclosures, his brow becoming blacker than ever.

“But, Pedrillo,” he inquires, after a pause; “what did he say to them? You know the import of his message. Did he communicate it to the survivors?”

“He did, your Excellency. They could not read your letter, but he told them what it was about. They were to meet you here, he said. But they refused to come. They were in too great distress about the death of their chief, and the chastisement they had received. They were in fear that the Tejanos would pursue them to their town; and were making preparations to flee from it when Pedrillo and myself came away. Pobre Pedrillito!”

Uraga no longer stays listening to the mock humanity of his whining messenger. No more does he think of the drowned Pedrillo. His thoughts are now given to a new design. Murder by proxy has failed. For all that, it must still be done. To take counsel with his adjutant about the best mode of proceeding, he hastens back to the camp; plunges into his tent; and there becomes closeted – the lieutenant along with him.

Chapter Seventy Two.

A Mock Court-Martial

For the disaster that was overtaken the Tenawa chief and his warriors, Gil Uraga does not care a jot. True, by the death of Horned Lizard he has lost an ally who, on some future scheme of murder, might have been used to advantage; while Barbato, whose life he believes also taken, can no more do him service as agent in his intercourse with the red pirates of the prairie.

It matters not much now. As military commander of a district he has attained power, enabling him to dispense with any left-handed assistance; and of late more than once has wished himself rid of such suspicious auxiliaries. Therefore, but for the frustration of his present plans, he would rather rejoice than grieve over the tidings brought by the returned emissary.

His suit scorned, his scheme of assassination thwarted, he is as much as ever determined on the death of the two prisoners.

In the first moments of his anger, after hearing José’s tale, he felt half inclined to rush upon Miranda, sword in hand, and settle the matter at once. But, while returning to the camp-ground, calmer reflections arose, restraining him from the dastardly act, and deciding him to carry out the other alternative, already conceived, but kept back as a dernier ressort.